To pick one feature over all, I would say it is the UI MOD system that is lightyears ahead of any other games, and configuring and changing the UI in WoW was always a must for me - Thanks MODders for all Your work.
(Except QuestHelper which really pulled all the limited magic out of WoW for good.. and NO! I can't just not use it; When You have the choice of crawling through the mud or walking the bridge, You take the bridge).
Sukiyaki - I have read all your posts and I am not sure what your problem is, you write like you're from the 19th century and/or have a thesaurus permanently glued to one eye ball, big words do not make your opinions more deserving than others.
On topic - does it really matter how Blizzard are achieving this seamless cross realm business? does it matter to the players?all that matters is they will see a marked boost in the number of player out of the main cities, that their faction may no longer appear to be vastly out numbered by the other and that suddenly there are 100's of guilds looking for new members, all this without them needing to do anything or worry about their server closing.
By definition blizzard are as of 5.4 doing a form of clustering the technology and methods in the background are not important... end of.
My perception is that the current crop of WoW-like games, which is the vast majority, focus too much on one or two things to the exclusion of all others. These games pick something they like about WoW and spend so much time trying to outdo WoW that they forget to develop the other parts of their game.
I don't think WoW does anything in a spectacular way, but they do everything in a way that is tolerable. To me, it easier to enjoy a game that is mediocre overall than one that excels at one or two features and the rest of the game is utter crap. GW2 is an example. The Secret World is another example.
I also think it is what keeps millions of people playing WoW after 8 years.
Put all that time into a game, and when you're playing another game and see it doesn't have A or B, you prefer what you missed. Add that friends and family are playing, makes it difficult to leave, too.
2010: WOW had 12.000.000 global subscribers and was at its top with 62% << source for global marketshare: yourself of the subscrion based MMORPG market.
2013: WOW has 8.000.000 global subscribers and stands at the top with 95% << source for global marketshare: yourselfof the subscription based MMORPG market.
Don't mix things up: this MMORPG subscription based market turned free to play.<< source for global marketshare: yourself
WOW lost players... BUT gained market share in the subscription based market << source for global marketshare: yourself.
Hence Blizzard's revenue hardly dried up at all. They own the place in $$$ signs more than ever.<< source for marketshare: yourself.
So not even mmodata can keep up with these changes in a dying market.<< source for reason of of inactivity of a irrelevant private unprofessional website fabricating population data about games for years: yourself.
would would would should could maybe ....
If WOW turned free to play it would be devastating to this industry:
25.000.000 WoW players would be a breeze for a F2P WOW. But it would be "the end" for those others.
Don't come up with free to play "players" and even dare to compare them with subscription based games.
Only trolls would do that.
And you only had to invent and fabricate 5 out of 5 of the relevant "facts" cited, besides the two known global active account numbers, to make WoWs financial and popularity decline look so much more favourable!
Inventing and fabricate ?
" April 2008, WOW was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market"
As stated the highest point of subscriptions in WOW was 2010. (see reference too)
---
Since that time ... Lotro, D&D0n line, Star Trek On line, Age of Conan, Aion, APB, Everquest 2, CoH, PotbS, B&S, DC Universe, Hellgate London, Tabula Rasa, SWGalaxies, SW TOR, Rift and along with a few hundred others (space prohibits to reproduce the endless list)... went/are FREE to play or simply DIED even...
I think the 95% market share in SUBSCRIPTIONS is telling everything really.
Going F2P is a shake out in this industry, not a new model to make more money.
Proof ? Let's take the latest one that turned F2P: Rift: even in its "relaunching weeks of F2P" ... it barely made it to 22 servers, while at its launch as a subscription based game it gathered 99 servers.
All with a non steady and very doubtful new revenue model. Why doubtful ? Look at the King of F2P with 80 million players: Farmville.... only 3% pay 20 dollars or more, the vast majority or 82% pay ... ZERO dollars.
Tx for proving my points btw. (and just to be sure, I have the links of that last statement too )
So your proudly presented "proof " for the invented and fabricated global financial/population marketshare of WoW claims consists of
- a single Wikipedia article line referencinga guess by no one less than the past MMOGCHART.COM owner. And we all know how reliable that guys "data" has been, when it barely would even cover most of the Western MMOs, to justify just 1 out of 5 of your claims feigned as objective/factual data (the 62% marketshare).
- naming a handful games you know out of dozen existing and past P2P MMORPGs across the globe (as usual with the "i could name so much more... but I wont" excuse for lack of further/complete information) which partly are even as much "subscription" based as WoW yet is. But hey why bother. I wonder how citing a few MMOs names, could even proof the proclaimed global marketshare of WoW in the entire subscription* based MMO industry . Oh wait I don't, its just the usual wilful dishonesty and incoherent pull of arbitrary conclusions from conjecture out of incomplete/fractions of data (if at all) to put up a farce of "reasoning" and deny lack of proof and rationality behind your repetitive baseless claims.
- random blabla about 1 games recent server numbers and how in your opinion that supposed to proof anything about the entire subscription* based MMO industry and WoWs current and past marketshare in it.
- random blabla about 1 casual browser games (lets me guess, also just estimated) earnings per user, out of thousands of hardcore, clientbase, browserbade F2P and P2P games, and how in your opinion that supposed to proof anything about the entire subscription* based MMO industry and WoWs current and past marketshare in it.
So if that's it? No even making up more "facts" to "proof" your "facts"? I bet you could cite your "facts" about World of Tanks as proof too.
I don't even need to argue this self defeating rebuttal any further than citing it. It shows where those baseless claims are coming from (or rather not) and where this deliberate misinformation campaign is headed to.
*by the same personalized definition of "subscriber" Blizzard is using to calculate "subscriptions" out of their global active and semi-active game accounts.
1. Wikipedia is pretty much a proven source for anyone discussing general objects on a forum.
2. Proof of your bad try at misinformation: I quoted 16 (!) MMO's that went F2P or out of business widening the gap with the subscription base of current WOW , NOT like you lied " a handful games".
3. I picked the Rift example because it was the MOST recently relaunched F2P MMO (and so it has the advantage of a fresh start and not the already dead servers from other F2P relaunches like D&DO of 2010...)
22 Rift free to play servers now out of the original 99 servers (as a subscription game launch), shows F2P is not even an alternative to a pure subscription.
4. The King of F2P was Farmville, and with 82% NOT even spending ONE dime in a F2P game it shows F2P is not a valid alternative for MMORPG's which are MUCH more costly to make than browser games.
So for a forum I gave you more than ample proof WOW is the last man standing in subscription land - along with EVE.
Don't even dare to dissuss the current Blizzard subscription definitions as they are well defined for years on their website.
BTW: in every post you lied these days: WOW made 275 million GAAP revenue in the last quarter, not "less than 75 million per month". And btw GAAP is the only official accepted standard for bookkeeping in the US.
You still keep talking about server merges, instead of virtual realms that will regroup the total player numbers of the clustered realms.
You still keep spreading lies about CRZ and how the virtual servers will work.
-
I declare you know without ANY shadow of a doubt the official hate troll of the WOW forums.
So if that's it? No even making up more "facts" to "proof" your "facts"? I bet you could cite your "facts" about World of Tanks as proof too.
I don't even need to argue this self defeating rebuttal any further than citing it. It shows where those baseless claims are coming from (or rather not) and where this deliberate misinformation campaign is headed to.
*by the same personalized definition of "subscriber" Blizzard is using to calculate "subscriptions" out of their global active and semi-active game accounts.
Facts here is you're arguing numbers to defend your views, which isn't what too many WoW players see it. To WoW players you mention F2P, they see it as failure (because so many MMOs that opened as the WoW killer, lost subs and then went F2P).
To me too F2P = fail, largely because it's designed to milk a player of money to play. EvE is a good example with it, with an economy that's out of control due to all the ISK floating in the game. Vets are who are cashing in on it, because they just buy them with ISK, so they can have 5+ accounts running for free. The new guy doesn't have that revenue stream to be self-sufficient, so he buys the PLEX making the game more expensive for him than a $14.95/mon sub. CCP rewards it's vets to stay in a pyramid scheme. But you can tell it's operating on fumes, as it also laid off staff and doesn't even have forum staff...the devs moderate their forums.
MMOs at this stage are operating like casinos and bypassing the laws on gambling. That's a worrying sign. More worrying is that folks instead of before pirating a game to play for free, now just demand F2P. This shows in how bad the MMO community is becoming, worse and worse. Someone who doesn't pay has no investment in the game, he's just in it for free play time, and the attitudes of such players drags the overall socialization down the drain.
So if that's it? No even making up more "facts" to "proof" your "facts"? I bet you could cite your "facts" about World of Tanks as proof too.
I don't even need to argue this self defeating rebuttal any further than citing it. It shows where those baseless claims are coming from (or rather not) and where this deliberate misinformation campaign is headed to.
*by the same personalized definition of "subscriber" Blizzard is using to calculate "subscriptions" out of their global active and semi-active game accounts.
Facts here is you're arguing numbers to defend your views, which isn't what too many WoW players see it. To WoW players you mention F2P, they see it as failure (because so many MMOs that opened as the WoW killer, lost subs and then went F2P).
To me too F2P = fail, largely because it's designed to milk a player of money to play. EvE is a good example with it, with an economy that's out of control due to all the ISK floating in the game. Vets are who are cashing in on it, because they just buy them with ISK, so they can have 5+ accounts running for free. The new guy doesn't have that revenue stream to be self-sufficient, so he buys the PLEX making the game more expensive for him than a $14.95/mon sub. CCP rewards it's vets to stay in a pyramid scheme. But you can tell it's operating on fumes, as it also laid off staff and doesn't even have forum staff...the devs moderate their forums.
MMOs at this stage are operating like casinos and bypassing the laws on gambling. That's a worrying sign. More worrying is that folks instead of before pirating a game to play for free, now just demand F2P. This shows in how bad the MMO community is becoming, worse and worse. Someone who doesn't pay has no investment in the game, he's just in it for free play time, and the attitudes of such players drags the overall socialization down the drain.
Bad model overall.
I fully agree. F2P is the worst that could have happened to MMORPG play and in most cases ... those were AAA subscription based games that turned F2P.
That's even 10 times worse because this means these games failed in their project as subscription based games and went free to play as a last resort.
MMORPG's are simply too costly to produce to gamble on F2P mechanics.
F2P only works in small projects, not in world wide MMORPG play. iPad games, Dota kind of games, and yes Hearthstone CCG money makers.
I think it is already too late ... Blizzard put their next giant MMORPG already on hold and gave priority to much smaller projects like HS and BAS.
These guys think free MMO's will kill WOW. They kill the complete industry instead, because no one will pay the huge development costs anymore for a very doubtful stream of non fixed revenue...
They are pioneers of the onlinegaming industry. Blizzard simply took the chance when the onlinegaming industry started to evolve into a serious and profitable market - or better let's say. The market already was there. It just waited for someone to find it.
WoW was the first MMO that was professional marketed over all available channels (print, online, tv). It was a totally new concept for the broad masses and thatfor easily enthused thousands of customers. Beyond that ... WoW has solid graphics, game design and is fun to play. A big plus was the fresh unused playerbase. Only a hand full of experienced EQ1/DAoC/Lineage veterans disliked the game. However, the majority of the new customers loved this new experience.
Yes, this is it.....Few people get this. WoW came when EQ1 needed an upgrade. SOE tryied with EQ2 at the same time but the their game ran like crap on most computers.
Who ever got it right at that point in time would be the winner, and WoW took it by far.
- Also understand that Blizzard dumped profits back into their game, SOE just took.
-EQ2 had paid expantions, WoW gave free patches for the longest time.
-EQ2 looked like plastic, WoW blended in nice with their graphics for that time.
-EQ2 expantions fit like a bad jig saw puzzle, WoW was seemless.
I hate what WoW is now, but they were the clear winner back then !
pfffffffffff..... imo EQ2 came out when the wow train was running in full force already.
WoW came out shortly after DAoC hit it's zenith... and sony realised THEN they should do sth.... which they couldn't
anyway, what is WoW doing right? it is doing things when needed... and it's doing em correctly
uh and ps: if you wanna imply wow took alot from EQ2, you are seriously desperate...
For someone that has been here since 2003 and has over 1000 posts you don't seem to much about mmo history.
These guys think free MMO's will kill WOW. They kill the complete industry instead, because no one will pay the huge development costs anymore for a very doubtful stream of non fixed revenue...
Something to think about.
Amen.
F2P = fail. Those asking for it don't understand that in gaming nothing gets done unless it's funded, first. If the funding comes in spurts bug fixes and new content is delayed...because money doesn't just grow on trees. Free loaders that will flock to these games don't even pay for the bandwidth used. They're leeches, and frankly I resent paying for others to play for free. They need to cough up their $14.95 a month.
They are pioneers of the onlinegaming industry. Blizzard simply took the chance when the onlinegaming industry started to evolve into a serious and profitable market - or better let's say. The market already was there. It just waited for someone to find it.
WoW was the first MMO that was professional marketed over all available channels (print, online, tv). It was a totally new concept for the broad masses and thatfor easily enthused thousands of customers. Beyond that ... WoW has solid graphics, game design and is fun to play. A big plus was the fresh unused playerbase. Only a hand full of experienced EQ1/DAoC/Lineage veterans disliked the game. However, the majority of the new customers loved this new experience.
Yes, this is it.....Few people get this. WoW came when EQ1 needed an upgrade. SOE tryied with EQ2 at the same time but the their game ran like crap on most computers.
Who ever got it right at that point in time would be the winner, and WoW took it by far.
- Also understand that Blizzard dumped profits back into their game, SOE just took.
-EQ2 had paid expantions, WoW gave free patches for the longest time.
-EQ2 looked like plastic, WoW blended in nice with their graphics for that time.
-EQ2 expantions fit like a bad jig saw puzzle, WoW was seemless.
I hate what WoW is now, but they were the clear winner back then !
pfffffffffff..... imo EQ2 came out when the wow train was running in full force already.
WoW came out shortly after DAoC hit it's zenith... and sony realised THEN they should do sth.... which they couldn't
anyway, what is WoW doing right? it is doing things when needed... and it's doing em correctly
uh and ps: if you wanna imply wow took alot from EQ2, you are seriously desperate...
For someone that has been here since 2003 and has over 1000 posts you don't seem to much about mmo history.
Nor understands that EQII (which I'm even a fan of and came from to play WoW) came but 2 weeks before WoW. EQII wasn't in full force already. It peaked in 2005, before SOE went to war against the players. From there the rest is history, WoW became the #1 MMO.
I won't say that WoW itself stands above its competition, but I will say that it's die hard fans do. Any new MMO that comes out is instantly shot down by the WoW community. Now it's not every WoW player...just the very dedicated ones. They like their game and don't want it or things around it to change. Don't want to see their friends leave to play another game just want them to stay there fighting over DPS numbers.
But most of all it did a lot of things right from the get go. Every subsequent MMO release has been plagued with too many game breaking bugs or systems that flat out did not function. The closest MMO release I've seen to WoW's was Guild Wars 2 and I'd actually go so far as to say GW2's release was better. There servers shit bricks from the sheer load of players trying to login, but after that first initial burst it was smooth sailing...very smooth sailing.
Secondly it has the most active community. It kind of sucks when you leave a game for a while and come back only to find your friends list is blank because no one on it is online, the cities are now ghost towns, and the pvp arenas/battlegrounds/whatever the game uses are empty and que times are over 30 minutes to find matches. When you leave and go back to WoW you almost have a guarantee that there will be people there. even if it's not YOUR friends there will be other people to mingle with; Other people to raid with, group with, other guilds to join, etc.
What makes it endure. We'll call it the MMO resume. WoW has a pretty nice resume. Plenty of content to go through and Mists of Pandaria proved that 8 years into its life cycle they are still dedicated to supporting the product. they have a LOT of players. and it's easy to get into. Do you know how many girls play WoW... i know it sounds sexist but lets think about it for a second. Compare how many females played video games in general pre-WoW and after. Ask yourself how many couples and families played..and compare it to the numbers now. So WoW has boobs. I think thats reason enough to endure... ^_~
It does nothing... It only holds so many subscribers simply because it came out at a perfect time and at that time it was a great game. People just don't want to leave and throw their precious characters down the drain and leave their friends... It's an addiction. I quit a couple years ago and it was hard, but now I can't even get in to it... It's just horrible now. WoW's subs will continue to dwindle.
Advertising. The game was solid in population and then got on Southpark then got a ton of commericials with Vern Troyer, Mr. T, other well known actors. Then came the comics toys card games and a lot of other stuff that came with the Warcraft IP. To me that helps boatloads.
Then the next thing I think they do the best; social interface and interaction.
Between all the Blizz games or at least a lot of them I could chat with anyone on my friends list. Chatting was easy and simple, compared to Defiance DCUO and other games I still fathom why people still don't just rip off the way WoW does it. WoW just seems like a giant 3d interactive version of FB and for Blizz it seems to work.
Playing: TSW, D&D NW, Defiance (more the tv show than game >.> ) LotRO, DCUO
They get the community together to fight common goals and have a ton of progression with multiple difficulty levels, and they are all quite polished. The problem is at this point in the industry they are lacking diversity. There is only two- three types of players in WoW essentially, versus the maybe 7 or 8 types of MMO gamer that now exist in today's industry. I used to be a hardcore WoW player, now I essentially resent MMO's that try to be WoW clones (Looking at you Wildstar). I've had my fill of WoW, and enjoyed it quite a bit for the most part, I'm craving something new.
These guys think free MMO's will kill WOW. They kill the complete industry instead, because no one will pay the huge development costs anymore for a very doubtful stream of non fixed revenue...
Something to think about.
Amen.
F2P = fail. Those asking for it don't understand that in gaming nothing gets done unless it's funded, first. If the funding comes in spurts bug fixes and new content is delayed...because money doesn't just grow on trees. Free loaders that will flock to these games don't even pay for the bandwidth used. They're leeches, and frankly I resent paying for others to play for free. They need to cough up their $14.95 a month.
Lotro, D&D0n line, Star Trek On line, Age of Conan, Aion, APB, Everquest 2, CoH, PotbS, B&S, DC Universe, Hellgate London, Tabula Rasa, SWGalaxies, SW TOR, Rift and along with a few hundred others (space prohibits to reproduce the endless list)... went/are FREE to play or simply DIED even...
Just a grab of 16 MMORPG's that went free to play or died ... BUT were developped and had an INVESTMENT to grab subscription money and THEY ALL FAILED to grab the long term subscription money in a matter of 1 year.
F2P= less development, less structured (and assured) income, less designer planning because the revenue is uncertain.
F2P is good for Facebook games or casual iPAd games. Developped by a crew of 10 people and having the art department of one dude on a Mac and the sound made on a 500 dollar Casio system.
If anything this trend is simply a shake out of the MMORPG industry.
Don't even think these games above will be ever developped/designed like that in the coming years.
The only thing you'll get is a kind of World of Tanks gameplay. Good luck with that, jumping from one map to another, paying for every MG or canon in a game that plays out in 10 minute sessions...
It is sad to see that trolls like S. jump these boards to discuss the Multi million dollars of WOW while at the same time he drowns himself in games that simply mean the end of long term development in MMO's.
(btw S: WOW had 275 million dollars GAAP revenue in just first quarter in 2013 and COD Elite service went free to play in 2012 (you would have known that IF following the industry) , so that's pure WOW revenue just for one quarter, no matter how you want to twist it.
1 billion yearly dollars WOW money hurts the F2P failures, that's ALSO what Blizzard indeed does better.
"Regulation from the governing financial bodies requires that every company reports according to GAAP principles to ensure that accurate and useful information be available to all potential users. The uniformity of the information makes comparison among industry measures easier.
It is important as a savvy investor to ensure that the information you are using for comparison follows the GAAP rules and is not the (often more publicized) non-GAAP earnings number."
GAAP revenue for WOW was 275 million dollars in the first quarter only of 2013.*
Since the COD Elite service went FREE to PLAY back in 2012, it no longer contributes to that total number for the 2013 report (it is there because 2012 was included as a reference).
You can find the regulations about GAAP revenue everywhere btw.
*: quote from the report.
Revenue from online subscriptions consists of revenue from all World of Warcraft products, including subscriptions, boxed products, expansion packs,
licensing royalties, and value-added services. It also includes revenues from Call of Duty Elite memberships.
Originally posted by Tutu2 8 years running and it still overshadows it competition significantly. Other MMOs improve certain aspects of the "WoW clone" yet what is it that makes WoW so enduring and keeps people coming back?
Only overshadowing the competition in sub numbers and probably annual profits, content-wise and progress-wise they have been overtaken by a number of other mmos long ago.
What makes ppl come back to this game is it's addictive, and easy to get into.
Very smart design by Blizzard.
In a business what is underlined is all that matters.
For me, it's many things, but these two stand out for me.
Camera Control, Animations, Movement: All these feel fluid and connected and compliment each other well.
Races: All of them are very interesting with character development (story wise). Even during it's launch, there was various models instead of Human models only.
It's been said, and I've said it myself before. The biggest thing that keeps WoW going is that it will run on anything. It has very good graphics if you're computer can run it, and it even have decent graphics for your $199 bargain laptop. This allows people who aren't necessarily gamers to join the game.
Blizzard did a good job at marketing, especially with the "What's your game" commercials. The sub numbers skyrocketed as those commercials were playing. To this day, WoW is the only MMO you'll see advertised on primetime, non-gamer television. When MoP came out, you saw a commercial pretty much every commercial break on a bunch of channels, and even commercials on NBC, ABC, FOX.
Blizzard also had a large playerbase to start with. A lot of people that still play WoW, also played the previous Warcraft games. I can remember when WoW was announced, I was like "Holy Fish Tacos Batman! A Warcraft MMO!"
Another thing is the polish, it's due mainly to the first point above, but WoW just plays so smooth. It's one of the smoothest games ever, if not the smoothest. Unlike MMOs that have come after it, there's no clipping, no fps drops, almost no lag spikes. The only thing that isn't polished is the updating, but it's always been that way. They say servers will be up at noon, just take a vacation and show up at 7pm...that's when the servers will be up XD.
In short: It was a perfect storm of things Blizzard took advantage of.
1. Don't forget that it was the characters in the game that made the game fun. If your characters are stupid looking like the new asian and pokemon like characters coming out!!!! you have to be kidding me! It was the characters that made it great, but it looks like Blizzard is going down that suicidal slope now too so it is really just over for them. I guess trying to appeal to asians now so I guess I won't be buying games from them anymore.
2. Titan 2016? LOL are you kidding me? They have been working on that since 2008! That is 8 years of development! I seriously don't think anybody is going to care about it for quiet some time and may grow old in their boots before it is released including me! I hope it is going to be amazing for that amount of time! They do their own engines in-house though and that is a HUGE plus though.
3. PVP performed very well and was very precise in its mechanics when fighting somebody that made it very enjoyable because it wasn't a piece of crap when interacting with other players on the map.
4. It takes a certain kind of team of game designers and developers with certain personalities and that appeal to the culture (better be American culture or i'm out) of the current time that it is being made to make what Blizzard made in 2003, but i wonder where they are these days. Is Titan going to be that good? I wonder...
There is plenty of opportunity for somebody else to take the title back like EQN, but we will see if they can even pull that off. They did okay with Planetside 2 and they have some income now to provide EQN development, but still it remains to be seen how it is done. The engine is doing pretty good so I would say they have their own engine room smoothly for PVP already with Planetside 2.
I preferred the fantasy graphics, different from the realistic graphics that EQ2 tried to go with.. Blizzard did a lot right in the beginning, BUT as time went on, did a lot wrong as well.. To the point that I left years ago and never looked back.. WoW exposed just how terrible dungeon instancing became with a veteran customer base.. It was very anti social and exclusive.. I still miss the potential WoW could have if they would just make the needed changes I desire.. However, I don't see that happening because Im in the minority and Blizzard refuses to dedicate a server for players like me Oh well..
3 Funny Characters ( They move awkwardly, they talk funny, they are just so loveable)
4 Oversized shoulderpads (WoW trademark, they make a statement on every character, the bigger the more powerful)
5 Intuitive UI, even a kid can learn without a tutorial
6 Add Ons (make WoW one of the most customizable games on the market)
WoW clones miss more than one of those features, most important IMO is the Lore and, believe it or not, the funny/likeable characters which make WoW unique.
Comments
Load of things, but not everything.
To pick one feature over all, I would say it is the UI MOD system that is lightyears ahead of any other games, and configuring and changing the UI in WoW was always a must for me - Thanks MODders for all Your work.
(Except QuestHelper which really pulled all the limited magic out of WoW for good.. and NO! I can't just not use it; When You have the choice of crawling through the mud or walking the bridge, You take the bridge).
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
But you could do that in a few pre WoW MMOs, and in DAoC, had many more options than in WoW.
Sukiyaki - I have read all your posts and I am not sure what your problem is, you write like you're from the 19th century and/or have a thesaurus permanently glued to one eye ball, big words do not make your opinions more deserving than others.
On topic - does it really matter how Blizzard are achieving this seamless cross realm business? does it matter to the players?all that matters is they will see a marked boost in the number of player out of the main cities, that their faction may no longer appear to be vastly out numbered by the other and that suddenly there are 100's of guilds looking for new members, all this without them needing to do anything or worry about their server closing.
By definition blizzard are as of 5.4 doing a form of clustering the technology and methods in the background are not important... end of.
I don't think it's a question of doing better.
My perception is that the current crop of WoW-like games, which is the vast majority, focus too much on one or two things to the exclusion of all others. These games pick something they like about WoW and spend so much time trying to outdo WoW that they forget to develop the other parts of their game.
I don't think WoW does anything in a spectacular way, but they do everything in a way that is tolerable. To me, it easier to enjoy a game that is mediocre overall than one that excels at one or two features and the rest of the game is utter crap. GW2 is an example. The Secret World is another example.
I also think it is what keeps millions of people playing WoW after 8 years.
What keeps players coming back is it's home.
Put all that time into a game, and when you're playing another game and see it doesn't have A or B, you prefer what you missed. Add that friends and family are playing, makes it difficult to leave, too.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
1. Wikipedia is pretty much a proven source for anyone discussing general objects on a forum.
2. Proof of your bad try at misinformation: I quoted 16 (!) MMO's that went F2P or out of business widening the gap with the subscription base of current WOW , NOT like you lied " a handful games".
3. I picked the Rift example because it was the MOST recently relaunched F2P MMO (and so it has the advantage of a fresh start and not the already dead servers from other F2P relaunches like D&DO of 2010...)
22 Rift free to play servers now out of the original 99 servers (as a subscription game launch), shows F2P is not even an alternative to a pure subscription.
4. The King of F2P was Farmville, and with 82% NOT even spending ONE dime in a F2P game it shows F2P is not a valid alternative for MMORPG's which are MUCH more costly to make than browser games.
So for a forum I gave you more than ample proof WOW is the last man standing in subscription land - along with EVE.
Don't even dare to dissuss the current Blizzard subscription definitions as they are well defined for years on their website.
BTW: in every post you lied these days: WOW made 275 million GAAP revenue in the last quarter, not "less than 75 million per month". And btw GAAP is the only official accepted standard for bookkeeping in the US.
You still keep talking about server merges, instead of virtual realms that will regroup the total player numbers of the clustered realms.
You still keep spreading lies about CRZ and how the virtual servers will work.
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I declare you know without ANY shadow of a doubt the official hate troll of the WOW forums.
Facts here is you're arguing numbers to defend your views, which isn't what too many WoW players see it. To WoW players you mention F2P, they see it as failure (because so many MMOs that opened as the WoW killer, lost subs and then went F2P).
To me too F2P = fail, largely because it's designed to milk a player of money to play. EvE is a good example with it, with an economy that's out of control due to all the ISK floating in the game. Vets are who are cashing in on it, because they just buy them with ISK, so they can have 5+ accounts running for free. The new guy doesn't have that revenue stream to be self-sufficient, so he buys the PLEX making the game more expensive for him than a $14.95/mon sub. CCP rewards it's vets to stay in a pyramid scheme. But you can tell it's operating on fumes, as it also laid off staff and doesn't even have forum staff...the devs moderate their forums.
MMOs at this stage are operating like casinos and bypassing the laws on gambling. That's a worrying sign. More worrying is that folks instead of before pirating a game to play for free, now just demand F2P. This shows in how bad the MMO community is becoming, worse and worse. Someone who doesn't pay has no investment in the game, he's just in it for free play time, and the attitudes of such players drags the overall socialization down the drain.
Bad model overall.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
I fully agree. F2P is the worst that could have happened to MMORPG play and in most cases ... those were AAA subscription based games that turned F2P.
That's even 10 times worse because this means these games failed in their project as subscription based games and went free to play as a last resort.
MMORPG's are simply too costly to produce to gamble on F2P mechanics.
F2P only works in small projects, not in world wide MMORPG play. iPad games, Dota kind of games, and yes Hearthstone CCG money makers.
I think it is already too late ... Blizzard put their next giant MMORPG already on hold and gave priority to much smaller projects like HS and BAS.
These guys think free MMO's will kill WOW. They kill the complete industry instead, because no one will pay the huge development costs anymore for a very doubtful stream of non fixed revenue...
Something to think about.
For someone that has been here since 2003 and has over 1000 posts you don't seem to much about mmo history.
Amen.
F2P = fail. Those asking for it don't understand that in gaming nothing gets done unless it's funded, first. If the funding comes in spurts bug fixes and new content is delayed...because money doesn't just grow on trees. Free loaders that will flock to these games don't even pay for the bandwidth used. They're leeches, and frankly I resent paying for others to play for free. They need to cough up their $14.95 a month.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
Nor understands that EQII (which I'm even a fan of and came from to play WoW) came but 2 weeks before WoW. EQII wasn't in full force already. It peaked in 2005, before SOE went to war against the players. From there the rest is history, WoW became the #1 MMO.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
I won't say that WoW itself stands above its competition, but I will say that it's die hard fans do. Any new MMO that comes out is instantly shot down by the WoW community. Now it's not every WoW player...just the very dedicated ones. They like their game and don't want it or things around it to change. Don't want to see their friends leave to play another game just want them to stay there fighting over DPS numbers.
But most of all it did a lot of things right from the get go. Every subsequent MMO release has been plagued with too many game breaking bugs or systems that flat out did not function. The closest MMO release I've seen to WoW's was Guild Wars 2 and I'd actually go so far as to say GW2's release was better. There servers shit bricks from the sheer load of players trying to login, but after that first initial burst it was smooth sailing...very smooth sailing.
Secondly it has the most active community. It kind of sucks when you leave a game for a while and come back only to find your friends list is blank because no one on it is online, the cities are now ghost towns, and the pvp arenas/battlegrounds/whatever the game uses are empty and que times are over 30 minutes to find matches. When you leave and go back to WoW you almost have a guarantee that there will be people there. even if it's not YOUR friends there will be other people to mingle with; Other people to raid with, group with, other guilds to join, etc.
What makes it endure. We'll call it the MMO resume. WoW has a pretty nice resume. Plenty of content to go through and Mists of Pandaria proved that 8 years into its life cycle they are still dedicated to supporting the product. they have a LOT of players. and it's easy to get into. Do you know how many girls play WoW... i know it sounds sexist but lets think about it for a second. Compare how many females played video games in general pre-WoW and after. Ask yourself how many couples and families played..and compare it to the numbers now. So WoW has boobs. I think thats reason enough to endure... ^_~
What does WoW do better?
IMO
Advertising. The game was solid in population and then got on Southpark then got a ton of commericials with Vern Troyer, Mr. T, other well known actors. Then came the comics toys card games and a lot of other stuff that came with the Warcraft IP. To me that helps boatloads.
Then the next thing I think they do the best; social interface and interaction.
Between all the Blizz games or at least a lot of them I could chat with anyone on my friends list. Chatting was easy and simple, compared to Defiance DCUO and other games I still fathom why people still don't just rip off the way WoW does it. WoW just seems like a giant 3d interactive version of FB and for Blizz it seems to work.
Playing: TSW, D&D NW, Defiance (more the tv show than game >.> ) LotRO, DCUO
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
Lotro, D&D0n line, Star Trek On line, Age of Conan, Aion, APB, Everquest 2, CoH, PotbS, B&S, DC Universe, Hellgate London, Tabula Rasa, SWGalaxies, SW TOR, Rift and along with a few hundred others (space prohibits to reproduce the endless list)... went/are FREE to play or simply DIED even...
Just a grab of 16 MMORPG's that went free to play or died ... BUT were developped and had an INVESTMENT to grab subscription money and THEY ALL FAILED to grab the long term subscription money in a matter of 1 year.
F2P= less development, less structured (and assured) income, less designer planning because the revenue is uncertain.
F2P is good for Facebook games or casual iPAd games. Developped by a crew of 10 people and having the art department of one dude on a Mac and the sound made on a 500 dollar Casio system.
If anything this trend is simply a shake out of the MMORPG industry.
Don't even think these games above will be ever developped/designed like that in the coming years.
The only thing you'll get is a kind of World of Tanks gameplay. Good luck with that, jumping from one map to another, paying for every MG or canon in a game that plays out in 10 minute sessions...
It is sad to see that trolls like S. jump these boards to discuss the Multi million dollars of WOW while at the same time he drowns himself in games that simply mean the end of long term development in MMO's.
(btw S: WOW had 275 million dollars GAAP revenue in just first quarter in 2013 and COD Elite service went free to play in 2012 (you would have known that IF following the industry) , so that's pure WOW revenue just for one quarter, no matter how you want to twist it.
1 billion yearly dollars WOW money hurts the F2P failures, that's ALSO what Blizzard indeed does better.
Resources to make great games.
"Regulation from the governing financial bodies requires that every company reports according to GAAP principles to ensure that accurate and useful information be available to all potential users. The uniformity of the information makes comparison among industry measures easier.
It is important as a savvy investor to ensure that the information you are using for comparison follows the GAAP rules and is not the (often more publicized) non-GAAP earnings number."
GAAP revenue for WOW was 275 million dollars in the first quarter only of 2013.*
Since the COD Elite service went FREE to PLAY back in 2012, it no longer contributes to that total number for the 2013 report (it is there because 2012 was included as a reference).
You can find the regulations about GAAP revenue everywhere btw.
*: quote from the report.
Revenue from online subscriptions consists of revenue from all World of Warcraft products, including subscriptions, boxed products, expansion packs,
licensing royalties, and value-added services. It also includes revenues from Call of Duty Elite memberships.
In a business what is underlined is all that matters.
For me, it's many things, but these two stand out for me.
It's been said, and I've said it myself before. The biggest thing that keeps WoW going is that it will run on anything. It has very good graphics if you're computer can run it, and it even have decent graphics for your $199 bargain laptop. This allows people who aren't necessarily gamers to join the game.
Blizzard did a good job at marketing, especially with the "What's your game" commercials. The sub numbers skyrocketed as those commercials were playing. To this day, WoW is the only MMO you'll see advertised on primetime, non-gamer television. When MoP came out, you saw a commercial pretty much every commercial break on a bunch of channels, and even commercials on NBC, ABC, FOX.
Blizzard also had a large playerbase to start with. A lot of people that still play WoW, also played the previous Warcraft games. I can remember when WoW was announced, I was like "Holy Fish Tacos Batman! A Warcraft MMO!"
Another thing is the polish, it's due mainly to the first point above, but WoW just plays so smooth. It's one of the smoothest games ever, if not the smoothest. Unlike MMOs that have come after it, there's no clipping, no fps drops, almost no lag spikes. The only thing that isn't polished is the updating, but it's always been that way. They say servers will be up at noon, just take a vacation and show up at 7pm...that's when the servers will be up XD.
In short: It was a perfect storm of things Blizzard took advantage of.
1. Don't forget that it was the characters in the game that made the game fun. If your characters are stupid looking like the new asian and pokemon like characters coming out!!!! you have to be kidding me! It was the characters that made it great, but it looks like Blizzard is going down that suicidal slope now too so it is really just over for them. I guess trying to appeal to asians now so I guess I won't be buying games from them anymore.
2. Titan 2016? LOL are you kidding me? They have been working on that since 2008! That is 8 years of development! I seriously don't think anybody is going to care about it for quiet some time and may grow old in their boots before it is released including me! I hope it is going to be amazing for that amount of time! They do their own engines in-house though and that is a HUGE plus though.
3. PVP performed very well and was very precise in its mechanics when fighting somebody that made it very enjoyable because it wasn't a piece of crap when interacting with other players on the map.
4. It takes a certain kind of team of game designers and developers with certain personalities and that appeal to the culture (better be American culture or i'm out) of the current time that it is being made to make what Blizzard made in 2003, but i wonder where they are these days. Is Titan going to be that good? I wonder...
There is plenty of opportunity for somebody else to take the title back like EQN, but we will see if they can even pull that off. They did okay with Planetside 2 and they have some income now to provide EQN development, but still it remains to be seen how it is done. The engine is doing pretty good so I would say they have their own engine room smoothly for PVP already with Planetside 2.
1 Light Engine (everyone can run it)
2 The Lore (the Warcraft World is just awesome)
3 Funny Characters ( They move awkwardly, they talk funny, they are just so loveable)
4 Oversized shoulderpads (WoW trademark, they make a statement on every character, the bigger the more powerful)
5 Intuitive UI, even a kid can learn without a tutorial
6 Add Ons (make WoW one of the most customizable games on the market)
WoW clones miss more than one of those features, most important IMO is the Lore and, believe it or not, the funny/likeable characters which make WoW unique.
1. Raiding is amazing in WoW.
2. The Addons kick ass in wow.
3. A lot of people play it and, yes, there are nice people.
4. The game engine is silky smooth and has aged gracefully.
5. For a game with a ton of classes it is incredibly balanced.