World of Warcraft up to 4 million subscribers now.

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: fishbits
Now personally I think WoW has jumped the shark and will experience decreased subs over the coming months. Only too late will Bliz recognize/ admit/ work on things it should have for a long while now. But I've got no reason to pretend their immense success didn't happen, and isn't happening to this very day.

Curse the man who brought that phrase to the mainstream so every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he sounds cool using it even when it's totally out of context.

WoW didn't "jump the shark" :roll:, it's just a simplistic and limited experience that is running its due course. There was no substance in the game to start off with and many of us saw that immediately and didn't bother wasting our time with it.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: fishbits
Now personally I think WoW has jumped the shark and will experience decreased subs over the coming months. Only too late will Bliz recognize/ admit/ work on things it should have for a long while now. But I've got no reason to pretend their immense success didn't happen, and isn't happening to this very day.

Curse the man who brought that phrase to the mainstream so every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he sounds cool using it even when it's totally out of context.

WoW didn't "jump the shark" :roll:, it's just a simplistic and limited experience that is running its due course. There was no substance in the game to start off with and many of us saw that immediately and didn't bother wasting our time with it.

I believe it's called different tastes.
Basically some people enjoy some things, while others enjoy other things.
You for example may prefer McDonalds while I prefer Burger King(these being of course fictional examples, though I will say I'll take BK over McD any day).

In the end, many people will enjoy many different things, some people will like WoW, others will prefer EQ, and so forth.
Some people will tire quickly, others will enjoy it for a long time.

Me, I like WoW, but I don't think I could ever like EQ II for example, due to it's lack of PvP, just to take one example.

Learning these fundamentals of human behaviour is a great start towards understanding the actions and opinions of other humans around you.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Learning these fundamentals of human behaviour is a great start towards understanding the actions and opinions of other humans around you.

Thanks, Dr Phil.

Sorry, but "different strokes for different folks" doesn't fly when something affects me too. The more crappy, uninventive games that are successful, the more will be made. And that's especially true within the claustrophic MMORPG genre. Do you make the same argument when somebody criticizes a lousy movie?

I didn't like EQ. In retrospect it was a pretty lousy game. But it was successful mostly thanks to the addicting yet astoundingly unfun gameplay. Logging on for 12 hours and standing in one place to get a magic belt? But the message was clear even if players didn't mean to send it......."they just want carrots" was the refrain across the development world. Players settled for addicting level grinding when they could have also demanded fun and challenge and community and casual gamer friendliness. Had EQ not been so successful, developers would have needed to try something else....something more.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Sunner
Learning these fundamentals of human behaviour is a great start towards understanding the actions and opinions of other humans around you.

Thanks, Dr Phil.

Sorry, but "different strokes for different folks" doesn't fly when something affects me too. The more crappy, uninventive games that are successful, the more will be made. And that's especially true within the claustrophic MMORPG genre. Do you make the same argument when somebody criticizes a lousy movie?

Of course, I dislike lots of movie that many others like, doesn't mean they suck, I just don't like them.
I didn't even like The Godfather much, that doesn't mean it's a crappy movie.

Same thing with games for that matter, most people loves Half Life 2, I didn't, thought it was boring and outright sucked in some parts, still a lot of people liked it, so obviously it didn't universally suck, same as WoW.

I think WoW is fun, so do many of my friends, hence it's not a crappy game to us, and we'll keep playing as long as it's fun.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: fishbits
Now personally I think WoW has jumped the shark and will experience decreased subs over the coming months. Only too late will Bliz recognize/ admit/ work on things it should have for a long while now. But I've got no reason to pretend their immense success didn't happen, and isn't happening to this very day.

Curse the man who brought that phrase to the mainstream so every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he sounds cool using it even when it's totally out of context.

WoW didn't "jump the shark" :roll:, it's just a simplistic and limited experience that is running its due course. There was no substance in the game to start off with and many of us saw that immediately and didn't bother wasting our time with it.

By running its course do you mean continuing to be the fastest growing MMORPG of all time nearly 10 months after its release?

 

[Tremulant]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Sunner
Learning these fundamentals of human behaviour is a great start towards understanding the actions and opinions of other humans around you.

Thanks, Dr Phil.

Sorry, but "different strokes for different folks" doesn't fly when something affects me too. The more crappy, uninventive games that are successful, the more will be made. And that's especially true within the claustrophic MMORPG genre. Do you make the same argument when somebody criticizes a lousy movie?

Of course, I dislike lots of movie that many others like, doesn't mean they suck, I just don't like them.
I didn't even like The Godfather much, that doesn't mean it's a crappy movie.

Same thing with games for that matter, most people loves Half Life 2, I didn't, thought it was boring and outright sucked in some parts, still a lot of people liked it, so obviously it didn't universally suck, same as WoW.

I think WoW is fun, so do many of my friends, hence it's not a crappy game to us, and we'll keep playing as long as it's fun.

Off topic: I think we can all agree that "Open Water" sucked universally.

edit: the movie.

 

[jack1201]

Is that true???

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Tremulant

Originally posted by: Sunner
I think WoW is fun, so do many of my friends, hence it's not a crappy game to us, and we'll keep playing as long as it's fun.

Off topic: I think we can all agree that "Open Water" sucked universally.

edit: the movie.

Haven't seen it, but I can throw Future War in as my contribution as something that universally sucked, tragi-comical factor aside
You really should see it though, it's quite funny for a while if you're slightly drunk or more, you'll be laughing your ass of at the people who paid for it, the bad Jean Claude van Damme copy in the lead role, the plastic toy dinosaurs running amok, and many other great things

 

[Tremulant]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Tremulant

Originally posted by: Sunner
I think WoW is fun, so do many of my friends, hence it's not a crappy game to us, and we'll keep playing as long as it's fun.

Off topic: I think we can all agree that "Open Water" sucked universally.

edit: the movie.

Haven't seen it, but I can throw Future War in as my contribution as something that universally sucked, tragi-comical factor aside
You really should see it though, it's quite funny for a while if you're slightly drunk or more, you'll be laughing your ass of at the people who paid for it, the bad Jean Claude van Damme copy in the lead role, the plastic toy dinosaurs running amok, and many other great things

And I've never seen that.

However, I agree with you, not everyone is the same and everyone has different tastes and preferences.

 

[tw1164]

After looking at the linked chart:

I thought that EQ would have, then shown on the charts. I thought they would have have atleast 1mil. I personally play COH, and I'm saddened by the number of users (<250k). It has been looking bare recently :

I played WoW for about 1 week in the beta stage it was fun, but there was alot of l33t tween chatter.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: fishbits
Now personally I think WoW has jumped the shark and will experience decreased subs over the coming months. Only too late will Bliz recognize/ admit/ work on things it should have for a long while now. But I've got no reason to pretend their immense success didn't happen, and isn't happening to this very day.

Curse the man who brought that phrase to the mainstream so every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he sounds cool using it even when it's totally out of context.

WoW didn't "jump the shark" :roll:, it's just a simplistic and limited experience that is running its due course. There was no substance in the game to start off with and many of us saw that immediately and didn't bother wasting our time with it.

By running its course do you mean continuing to be the fastest growing MMORPG of all time nearly 10 months after its release?

Yes. It should even continue to grow from here. On a person to person basis, however, it generally doesn't last more than six months or so unless you are very desperate for something to fill the chasm left by your lack of social life or are very easily entertained in which case I wonder why you ever quit Mine Sweeper. But new curious players will show up wondering what the hype is about and assuming that 4,000,000 accounts means it's good. Plus east Asian profiteers will continue to join because of a high demand for EBayed goods....probably many with multiple accounts.

WoW has brought in tons of MMORPG newbies and, as such, they just have no clue what else an MMORPG can and should be so they slop up when they're served.

 

[jdport]

There's all kinds of metrics that can be used. Counting people who plunk down their dollars is certainly a fair one, there's far more artificial ones that can be used, kudos to Blizzard for sticking to objective data on this. You seem to have an emotional investment in saying that WoW isn't as popular/successful as it is.

No, I don't have an emotional attachment, like I said I've played WoW myself since release and I enjoyed the game for the most part. But, and I'm not disputing that they've had great success so far... however I dispute their numbers and still say they are inflated. If they want to count how many active accounts they have then do that. But they don't need to count people who logged on from an internet cafe, people who bought a game card, and people who played their free month. That right htere means somebody who is in their free month, logging on from an internet cafe, and just bought a game card is being counted 3 times. LOL. Maybe they aren't, but the way they defined "active players" they could be. I really don't know what they are doing, but it would be easy enough for them to simply count how many accounts have been payed for to determine paying customers, and to count how many accounts have been logged into in the last X days to determine how many active players they have. I *still* believe that they are inflating their numbers, and that % Marketshare chart is still pretty damn meaningless. To say that Blizzard is using objective numbers is just wrong, it's a big smoke screen.

Blizzard *IS* having immense success in their first year from a $$ perspective... they don't need to bloat their numbers. That was my original point.

That being said, people are leaving WoW I think at this point... and in an article I just saw today they announced that they won't have an expansion until late 2006 (barring anything pushing it back) and I think the game will be hurting by then. You can't put out a game where people are at the level cap in a month and then wait 2 years to put out an expansion and expect people to keep playing...

-jd

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Sunner
Learning these fundamentals of human behaviour is a great start towards understanding the actions and opinions of other humans around you.

Thanks, Dr Phil.

Sorry, but "different strokes for different folks" doesn't fly when something affects me too. The more crappy, uninventive games that are successful, the more will be made. And that's especially true within the claustrophic MMORPG genre. Do you make the same argument when somebody criticizes a lousy movie?

Of course, I dislike lots of movie that many others like, doesn't mean they suck, I just don't like them.
I didn't even like The Godfather much, that doesn't mean it's a crappy movie.

No, some movies do suck. The fact that some people like them does not redeem them.

Let's take George Lucas for instance. The Phantom Menace sucked. BUT millions of people went to watch it, so that told George Lucas he was on the right track and he made his next two movies in the same manner. Had TPM flopped, he may have had to go back to the drawing board and come up with some quality story writing.

I think WoW is fun, so do many of my friends, hence it's not a crappy game to us, and we'll keep playing as long as it's fun.

I doubt you find it fun. I could be wrong, but I think what you term "fun" is merely the compulsion to log on and play which could be for innumerable non-fun or even non-WoW-specific reasons. If I'm wrong, I'd love to know what you find fun. Aren't you basically doing the same things over and over again for really very superficial reasons?

 

[PsharkJF]

4 million subcribers, 3,999,999 of which are gold farmers.

 

[torpid]

These threads should get a special acronym relating to Yet another hero of pellinor projects his own sad emotions onto other people who don't have the same problems he does thread. YAHOPPHOSEOOPWDHTSPHDT

Yes, anyone can project stupid assumptions like that onto anything. Recreational sports leagues come to mind. You don't actually find them fun, you are playing because you are addicted and want to beat other people, even if you don't enjoy the game you are playing. Blah blah blah.

Believe it or not some people don't have whatever emotional issues you have or you think other people have. If I get bored with a game, I stop playing. If I get frustrated, I either find something else to do or stop playing. Quit projecting your BS onto other people.

Some of us actually enjoy the teamwork and communication of the game, and find WoW to be a good balance betwen the banality of EQ and the excitement of a hack 'n slash games.

 

[jdport]

woot, I learned a new word!

ba·nal·i·ty Audio pronunciation of "banality" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (b-nl-t, b-)
n. pl. ba·nal·i·ties

1. The condition or quality of being banal; triviality.
2. Something that is trite, obvious, or predictable; a commonplace.




-jd

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: torpid
Yes, anyone can project stupid assumptions like that onto anything. Recreational sports leagues come to mind. You don't actually find them fun, you are playing because you are addicted and want to beat other people, even if you don't enjoy the game you are playing. Blah blah blah.

Apparently not everyone can. Recreational sports like, say softball, are PvP. Which is why they don't get boring. WoW is the equivolent of going to the batting cages.

Quit projecting your BS onto other people.

Did that line work on your therapist?

Some of us actually enjoy the teamwork and communication of the game, and find WoW to be a good balance betwen the banality of EQ and the excitement of a hack 'n slash games.

And you just got bored with DAoC?

 

[torpid]

Oh I'm sorry. I didn't understand the PvP exception. I still don't. How does a game that has PvP not fall under this exception? Will this be in your next book? I guess a better analogy for you is crossword puzzles. No one can possibly find them fun, it's just the same crap over and over again with the carrot-on-a-stick of completing it. Is that better? Or would you like to introduce another HoP patented exception?

Therapist? I don't see a therapist. Unlike you, I don't feel compelled to do things I don't enjoy but am unable to stop. I don't see how this explains the unusual popularity of wow either. The fanboy logic doesn't really cut it, since FFXI has lots of FF fanboys yet despite being on PS2 and PC did not have anywhere near the same explosive success.

Didn't "get bored" with DAoC. I found the game mediocre and not at all an enjoyable atmosphere. I did like FFXI though, despite the insane grinding, because it was fun interacting with people from japan and hong kong.

 

[fishbits]

But they don't need to count people who logged on from an internet cafe, people who bought a game card, and people who played their free month.

You can play from an internet cafe without having an account? News to me, but not out of the realm of the possible. What, you get a new lvl 1 character each time you pop in? Buying a game card means... I'm stringing together some tricky logic here... that you paid to play, making you a subscriber for the time you paid for right? And as far as the "free month" goes, it cost the person who gave it to me around $50. Considering that the software is worthless except as a coaster without an account, it seems a fair argument can be made that you did indeed pay for that "free" month.

I really don't know what they are doing, but it would be easy enough for them to simply count how many accounts have been payed for to determine paying customers, and to count how many accounts have been logged into in the last X days to determine how many active players they have.

The title of the thread is "WoW up to 4 million subscribers now." Backed up by subscriber data. That you're curious how many are playing actively is your own business, but it isn't as if Blizzard has claimed "Four million people online right now!" They provided a metric, and you find fault that their data doesn't match a different metric that you chose for your own reasons. Classic apples and oranges. As for what it matters to you (or should matter to us) how many of the subscribers played how recently, perhaps you can explain that. Again you seem to be saying that Blizzard is pulling some sort of fast one over on all of us by providing these numbers, and I just don't see the grand conspiracy and the ultimate malevolent goal driving it.

Edit: I can't go to the OP's link now, but if they're saying that if I buy the game and create l33tsp34k1ng-h0pp1ng-UD-r0gu3 with my account, then extend my time with a game card and get counted as two subscriptions, then yeah, I'd agree that that's padding the current subscriber count. But still, we're talking about marketing droids right? Sad but expected. Not like someone's going to subscribe for the first time and only find 12 people total. Worst case would be 2 million+, right? Still plenty to brag about.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Sunner
Learning these fundamentals of human behaviour is a great start towards understanding the actions and opinions of other humans around you.

Thanks, Dr Phil.

Sorry, but "different strokes for different folks" doesn't fly when something affects me too. The more crappy, uninventive games that are successful, the more will be made. And that's especially true within the claustrophic MMORPG genre. Do you make the same argument when somebody criticizes a lousy movie?

Of course, I dislike lots of movie that many others like, doesn't mean they suck, I just don't like them.
I didn't even like The Godfather much, that doesn't mean it's a crappy movie.

No, some movies do suck. The fact that some people like them does not redeem them.

Let's take George Lucas for instance. The Phantom Menace sucked. BUT millions of people went to watch it, so that told George Lucas he was on the right track and he made his next two movies in the same manner. Had TPM flopped, he may have had to go back to the drawing board and come up with some quality story writing.

I think WoW is fun, so do many of my friends, hence it's not a crappy game to us, and we'll keep playing as long as it's fun.

I doubt you find it fun. I could be wrong, but I think what you term "fun" is merely the compulsion to log on and play which could be for innumerable non-fun or even non-WoW-specific reasons. If I'm wrong, I'd love to know what you find fun. Aren't you basically doing the same things over and over again for really very superficial reasons?

More or less, yes, but in what games don't you do that?
I have yet to play such a game, and my first game was Ultima 1.

I guess maybe I find it fun because I don't have the time(nor inclination for that matter) to play for 8 hours a day, hence rushing through all the content in a few months.

I found Far Cry aa crapload of fun, and you could argue that all you do throughout the entire game is point and klick, yet I've played through it 3 or 4 times, and I must have played through the original Half Life like 20 times.

Can't say it's due to a lack of social life either, I've skipper numerous MC raids because I wanted to go out with friends and such instead, I don't let WoW get in the way of my gymming either, so I can't say my real life suffers.

Anyway, since you seem to think you know better than me what I like and not, what do you recommend?

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Sunner
More or less, yes, but in what games don't you do that?

BF2, C-S, UO (pre-Renaissance). WHat all three of these have in common is PvP. Here's a very very good question for you. Why play a MMORPG rather than a COOP or RPG? What does it matter to you that there are thousands of other players in the world at the same time as you? In UO, every single player was a potential threat.....that added tension and excitement even after 4 years of playing. That's why Counter-strike never gets old or boring.

I have yet to play such a game, and my first game was Ultima 1.

I guess maybe I find it fun because I don't have the time(nor inclination for that matter) to play for 8 hours a day, hence rushing through all the content in a few months.

I found Far Cry aa crapload of fun, and you could argue that all you do throughout the entire game is point and klick, yet I've played through it 3 or 4 times, and I must have played through the original Half Life like 20 times.

I noticed the three games you mentioned are all single player. Curious. And if you really like doing the same thing over and over, then, man, no wonder you like grinds like WoW.

Can't say it's due to a lack of social life either, I've skipper numerous MC raids because I wanted to go out with friends and such instead, I don't let WoW get in the way of my gymming either, so I can't say my real life suffers.

I said either that or are easily entertained and you, most certainly, fall into the latter. HL 20 times and FC 3?

Anyway, since you seem to think you know better than me what I like and not, what do you recommend?

You? Donkey Conga.......then you could cut out the gym from your routine.

 

[tw1164]

Soo... WOW == AOL of MMPOG?

 

[Sunner]

Don't know if you've noticed, but there's PvP in WoW too, you must have also missed the post above where I said I wouldn't play EQ II since it has no PvP, but I'm not surprised, the more you post the more childish your posts get.

I've played Battlefield 1944, was decent but not great, and this is coming from a guy whose relative did in fact start DICE back in the day, haven't tried 2.
I played CS from beta 4...something, I think it was, it peaked in beta 5.2 and got worse ever since, I stopped playing around 1.5 and haven't even bothered with Source.
I played WarCraft II over Kali and Doom1&2 over my trusty old 9600 modem.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say I've got more multiplayer gaming experience than most people.

No point in discussion though, you seem quite sure that your opinion is right and everyone who disagrees is wrong.
I'd claim that an opinion can by definition not be wrong, but you'd probably disagree with that, and hence I'd be wrong about that too.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: fishbits

But they don't need to count people who logged on from an internet cafe, people who bought a game card, and people who played their free month.

You can play from an internet cafe without having an account? News to me, but not out of the realm of the possible. What, you get a new lvl 1 character each time you pop in?

I think this is more about counting people in asia. They don't have the same kind of distribution model in Korea and China where there is more play at internet cafes. I think they don't pay the initial $50 but their fees are structured differently.

I don't theink they are talking about counting someone in the US who both paid for a month of subscription AND logged on at an internet cafe twice. I don't think they can even track this kind of thing the way it's setup in the US. They are tracking customers who payed, and I'm pretty sure the fee structures in Asia are completely different than those in the US and Europe.

 

[torpid]

HoP is hilarious. As time goes by he is more and more senile with his MMORPG opinions. It used to be that he would complain about the level system. He has totally discarded that, and now he just basically says nothing even remotely objective, and merely pines away over UO and his long lost love. I wonder if he will ask to be buried next to UO when he dies.

Yes, UO was innovative. But it was inherently flawed and those flaws eventually destroyed it. Kind of like an aboriginal tribe that gets consumed and invaded by colonial forces.