Wow Hits 11 Million players

[Drajakur]

WoW hits 11 Million Independent Forum Threads!

[Sharmai]

Concrete the sad ironic part of that is if any of those rappers were smart enough to get a good development team to make such a game they would become million or billionaires. The massive amounts of negative press and legal crap would only serve to make them more money.

GTA mmo would make WoW look like my little pony online.

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Sharmai

Scott: Couldn't that just be a symptom of companies following the same old tried and true method? I mean they all know fantasy works so they do fantasy but when they don't see WoW numbers they aren't happy. And why should they be when WoW is doing it better? Shouldn't new upstarts with WoW dreams be focusing on an entirely new gameplay model? I.E. Fallout? EVE with controllable ships? Steampunk? Heck pokemon online?

If you have dreams of being #1, there's definitely a lot of value in going where the current "#1" isn't ever going to go. Absolutely.

That said, there are still people who want to make a game that's relatively similar (read: "evolutionary"), and approach the problem as if they're going to actually beat #1 at their own game. That can happen, but it's exceedingly rare, both because of the internal barriers to getting there and the fact that winning that game depends on too many factors that are totally out of your control for that strategy to be a wise bet.

(e.g. You need to launch at exactly the right point in the market cycle relative to #1's popularity, and it also helps if #1 fumbles the ball.)

There aren't yet a lot of people who've launched multiple MMOs, or have even seen multiples launch while having all of the inside info, and there's some things you can really only learn about the dynamic once you have that perspective.

Even some of the most experienced people launching games today are still approaching it with a single launch under their belt.

Taking the guy with 0 launches as the extreme example - A lot of what they learn about how to behave is through observation. Chances are, the most observation going on is of what #1 is doing, because that works in most other of life's endeavors - Act like the champ, become the champ, rah rah.

The problem is, "taking the best of what #1 is doing" isn't the way to succeed with your fledgling MMO, unless your fledgling MMO is going to launch and suddenly take over the #1 slot. (Hint: it won't, and the industry is lined with the corpses of companies who didn't realize this)



One concrete example of what I mean by an advantage of the forces that keep #1 at the #1 slot:

I walked into a Gamestop (San Carlos, CA) the other day, saw the WoW display right at the front of the store, and asked the guy behind the counter where the rest of the PC games were.

"We don't carry PC games - Just World of Warcraft."

Meanwhile, ask Everyone Else how they're treated at retail, both from the ability to get their product on the shelves at launch (and the costs therein) and their ability to do basic things like "collect money they're owed from retailers," and you'll hear a drastically different story.

That's a more powerful advantage than anything in previous generations of MMOs.

- Scott

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by DeusEx

Repeating the same fucking old argument that has been posted over and over and over ever since the koreans started using a different sub model ten fucking years ago

Thank you!

[Goofy]

i think they deserve those numbers because in my opinion WoW is a pretty fuckin good game. There are flaws but you compare it to anything out there its still a giant.

Its close competitor warhammer is getting pretty good reviews from players but i think its just the "its new" thing. Its just like how alot of people were like FUCK WOW MAN. AGE OF CONAN ROCKS and 2 months or maybe 6 months later they're bitching about how if jesus played wow he'd play a paladin again.

And i don't see how 11 mil being just NA/europe or worldwide matters because we're on the internet. Everything is worldwide.

And some of you are gonna say "BUT WARCRAFT HAS THOSE FUCKIN KOREANS THAT WOULD SUCK BLIZZARD'S DICK so those numbers arn't fair because its just blind fanboism" but ask yourself again how many starwars nerds are there worldwide and SWG still failed.

Fanboism only takes a game that far. It still has to be a good game to find long term success.

The only thing that might put WoW ahead of its competition other than how good of a game it is compared to the rest is that it has localization to chinese/korean/russian/klingon.

But then again if the game sucked they wouldn't spend money(or even have the money to fund the resources to) localizing it anyways. If other companies like mythic want to hit those numbers 1 day they gotta start with the localizing shit because there is a fuckton of chinese people in china that think the word "vagina" means "dog" in mandrin.

[Samflam]

Originally Posted by royo

It's so cool that they can pull numbers out of their ass, but no external auditing company to prove they actually have that many accounts.

Write to congress and get this corrected ASAP

[Nehrak]

Originally Posted by Concrete

A GTA-type MMO rated 18 where you run drugs, guns and do gang wars would probably be insanely successful. Maybe one of those wealthy rappers could fund it.

What about coffee shops? How can you forget the coffee shops?!

[Bizanich]

Originally Posted by The Wise Gallenite

That said, there are still people who want to make a game that's relatively similar (read: "evolutionary"), and approach the problem as if they're going to actually beat #1 at their own game. That can happen, but it's exceedingly rare, both because of the internal barriers to getting there and the fact that winning that game depends on too many factors that are totally out of your control for that strategy to be a wise bet.

(e.g. You need to launch at exactly the right point in the market cycle relative to #1's popularity, and it also helps if #1 fumbles the ball.)

I don't see Blizzard screwing up anytime soon. Yes, their release schedule of new expansions is glacial, but it seems like they actively try and smash or dilute the enthusiasm of new games (alas poor Warhammer) and their UI/stability/fluidity is so good and those ingame cinematics and out of game CG trailers are so drool-worthy and the music....

At this point, unless Blizzard screws up, the only thing I can see challenging them is a game, even a fantasy game, with some kind of skill-gain system like Eve Online that continues even if not actively logged in.

Why?

People have to form an attachment to any characters in a game that will challenge Blizzard, and I just don't see it happening with any recent or coming releases. An offline skill gain system would allow a character in a new game to grow and become more powerful and when people grow bored with whatever Blizzard tosses out, switch to the other game and, hopefully, become hooked in by the content as well.

Eve Online hooks people by the offline content even when they go off and try new games, do this in a more popular fantasy setting...?

[Zerai]

Eh. It's like EQ. Why did people leave EQ for WoW? People were bored of EQ. I remember buying and playing damn near every MMO that came out during EQ's lifecycle and trying them out. I do the same with WoW. After TBC released, I hit 70, did some instances, didn't want to raid..had nothing to do so I quit. Tried EQ2. Played some betas. And looked for something else.

I didn't quit for AoC because it looked terrible. And I was right. I did try warhammer.

Why people switched from EQ to WoW was because WoW was better. It ran smoother. Everything looked brighter. Nicer. Newer. Warhammer felt like I was going back to EQ. Except with a laggy UI.

I'm going to keep trying new MMOs when they are released. Though I'm a little more picky these days. Been burned too many times (SWG, DAoC, warhammer, EQ2 [sorry scott, there was way too many buttons]) where I just didn't enjoy the game.

I know I'm quitting WoW for The Old Republic. But if it sucks I'll be back. Just need that one that doesn't suck =x

[Sharmai]

I don't think fantasy is the next big one unless your carrying an IP as big as say Baulder's Gate or something. Maybe if the next fantasy model included a fun version of "weaving" your spells and controlling your fireballs or something but honestly? I don't see anyone in the long term future with any ideas like that.

Also I think another big problem besides the fantasy infatuation that seems to exist in the mmo world is graphics. I'm not usually a graphics whore but for MMO's its important that your world appeals to a large base and not hardcore min/maxers. My GF looked at Warhammer and said "That's wow". Not as a question but as a statement. I said no its Warhammer and she said nope it looks just like WoW as far as shes concerned.

I then showed her the Warhammer opening cinematic and she was like "Wow we can play that?" She said "We" as in she wants to play an mmo now.

I hate to say it but if someone can make a game that looks like the cinematics, not like Warhammer or wow or eq2 but like the cinematics for those games and your going to win and win big.

She also said it looked like it would be an awesome movie.

[DeusEx]

Originally Posted by Sharmai

I then showed her the Warhammer opening cinematic and she was like "Wow we can play that?" She said "We" as in she wants to play an mmo now.

I hate to say it but if someone can make a game that looks like the cinematics, not like Warhammer or wow or eq2 but like the cinematics for those games and your going to win and win big.

So what's the point? No one can render such graphics on affordable hardware. Even the best PCs don't have the computational power required for such things.

WoW success has a lot to do that it runs even on very old systems. In a time where there's little reason to buy a high end PC, because there are less and less games available for that platform, developers are better off making their MMOs modest in terms of hardware requirements.

[Nehrak]

Originally Posted by DeusEx

So what's the point? No one can render such graphics on affordable hardware. Even the best PCs don't have the computational power required for such things.

WoW success has a lot to do that it runs even on very old systems. In a time where there's little reason to buy a high end PC, because there are less and less games available for that platform, developers are better off making their MMOs modest in terms of hardware requirements.

This. The problem with doing lifelike graphics is that we don't have the mainstream hardware for it. You can sure try, but you're going to be paying quite a sum for that, currently.

It will be several years before we get PCs in the home (MAYBE) that have that capability and don't scream "gamer config".

[Sharmai]

No they can't do at that level your right. But they can do it at this level.
Project Offset - Screenshots

Or like shadowrun

[kohl]

I think the sci-fi genre has a lot of room for growth, however, my guess is that to really be successful, a game of this genre needs to break out of the 'venture into newbie zone. kill rat, level up, kill big rat, level up again' paradigm that has been around since text MUDs.

The other half of the equation always has to be quality. I know Blizzard had a big advantage here because they were able to leverage a lot of solid talent from their SC and WC teams. I played Tabula Rasa beta and passed on retail release; it was sad to hear from friends who were playing about how buggy later areas of the game were.

How about a Wing Commander or Privateer MMO??

[Mazim]

Originally Posted by Concrete

A GTA-type MMO rated 18 where you run drugs, guns and do gang wars would probably be insanely successful. Maybe one of those wealthy rappers could fund it.

There are no wealthy rappers, just rich ones.