I would have been more interested to see a discussion of how WoW intends to remain competitive against the next generation of MMO games. This description essay on Shattrath sounded more like something you'd find in the lore section of the WoW website.

Frankly, nothing I have seen in Wrath of the Lich King is all that interesting. I played halfway through TBC before getting kind of bored with WoW and canceling my subscription. That's not to say WoW is a bad game; far from it, WoW is a most impressive and creative game. I just don't think WoW will be able to hold onto its subscription base if they don't come up with something "more fun" than what I experienced in TBC or what I have seen from the previews of the Northrend expansion.

Originally posted by Uraziel

Cupertino, less fanboiing, more realism.

I quoted facts.. not supposition as others. Please contribute to this thread or leave.

Originally posted by tmr819

I would have been more interested to see a discussion of how WoW intends to remain competitive against the next generation of MMO games.

So let's see why the subs has lessened? 

Someone in this thread stated that 5 people leave and their guild picks up 5 more.  True.  There will always be recycle; people picking up the game for the first time... people actually trying end game.  But the amount of subs playing the game to its fullest potential is small.  Let's say 2 guilds per realm (AVERAGE - some do have more, but some realms have none) running all true end game in the burning crusade.  That's about a guild of needing roughly 40 people who are willing to run a strict raiding schedule for either 2 ten man teams, and 25 man content.  Ok, so now we have roughly 80 people of 3,000 people playing regularly per realm (AVERAGES - some have more some have less).  That is a pretty low percentage of subs actually doing end game to its fullest (i.e. Mount Hyjal, Black Temple content).  Don't you think?

Personally, it was pretty upsetting to see greens dropping with such better stats than some of the gear I had from running end game pre BC.  It didn't matter.  Maybe that is why people left?  The fact they worked so hard at level 60 for months on end to get gear, money, crafting, and to have all that thrown away on their first green drop?  Or was it the dissappointment at how fast 60-70 was acheived?  I guess everyone has a different reason, but I know that Blizzard asks why people are letting their sub expire, what are the responses?  What does Blizzard plan on doing about it?

Just talking to a lot of co workers who have played WoW and still do play WoW, it is our concensus, that those who do not play, would come back if there were a level 60 non BC content realm.  And those who still play, state they will definitely go play on that realm and so would a lot of their guildies.  What does that say?  Ok ok, I'm talking 10 people out of 3.5 million, but so what, we are about 15 people making comments on here.  What does it matter? Maybe cause we still love the game and wish it could get back to its glorious self?

Speaking only for myself, I would have preferred they had simply scaled TBC upward in some sort of even, natural way that didn't, in effect, nullify all of the lower-level instances (Dire Maul, Stratholme, etc.). It seemed really bizarre to me to invest so much development time into instances that now cannot compete with TBC. Even now, Blizzard could retool these older instances in a way to make them fun and worthwhile for players.

The odd thing about Blizzard is the way they seem oblivious to their player base in a lot of small details: druids have been asking for new (less stupid-looking) animal forms for years to no avail; players have been asking for longer, better ignore lists; speedier flight paths; etc. Worse, if you are new to WoW, you will soon note that 90 to 95% of the patch fixes, tweaks, and enhancements have NOTHING to do with the increasingly barren level pre-TBC areas. I was beginning to get the feeling that Blizzard's official stance was "We have a zillion subscribers -- we don't have to do anything." And maybe they don't, but I think they will start losing their player base if they don't start listening to their customers a little better.

I got to the point where I would basically abandon most every "Group" or "Dungeon" quest for the 1-58 level range. Might as well not even bother. It was too much of a pain to find a group; even in TBC I'd bag the "Group" quests. What is going to draw new players into the game to play Wrath of the Lich King when you have to buy the original WoW and TBC and then level your way through both of those before you can get to level 70 and even set foot in Northrend?

Wrath of the Lich King will help keep long-time WoW fans happy, but other players will drift off to other games and Wrath, I would guess, is not going to bring a lot of new players into the game.

Originally posted by tmr819

Speaking only for myself, I would have preferred they had simply scaled TBC upward in some sort of even, natural way that didn't, in effect, nullify all of the lower-level instances (Dire Maul, Stratholme, etc.). It seemed really bizarre to me to invest so much development time into instances that now cannot compete with TBC. Even now, Blizzard could retool these older instances in a way to make them fun and worthwhile for players.

The odd thing about Blizzard is the way they seem oblivious to their player base in a lot of small details: druids have been asking for new (less stupid-looking) animal forms for years to no avail; players have been asking for longer, better ignore lists; speedier flight paths; etc. Worse, if you are new to WoW, you will soon note that 90 to 95% of the patch fixes, tweaks, and enhancements have NOTHING to do with the increasingly barren level pre-TBC areas. I was beginning to get the feeling that Blizzard's official stance was "We have a zillion subscribers -- we don't have to do anything." And maybe they don't, but I think they will start losing their player base if they don't start listening to their customers a little better.

I got to the point where I would basically abandon most every "Group" or "Dungeon" quest for the 1-58 level range. Might as well not even bother. It was too much of a pain to find a group; even in TBC I'd bag the "Group" quests. What is going to draw new players into the game to play Wrath of the Lich King when you have to buy the original WoW and TBC and then level your way through both of those before you can get to level 70 and even set foot in Northrend?

Wrath of the Lich King will help keep long-time WoW fans happy, but other players will drift off to other games and Wrath, I would guess, is not going to bring a lot of new players into the game.

the answers you look for lie in korea... and similar areas.   9 million asian subs can't be wrong!

Originally posted by melwe

 

Originally posted by tmr819

I would have been more interested to see a discussion of how WoW intends to remain competitive against the next generation of MMO games.

 

So let's see why the subs has lessened? 

Someone in this thread stated that 5 people leave and their guild picks up 5 more.  True.  There will always be recycle; people picking up the game for the first time... people actually trying end game.  But the amount of subs playing the game to its fullest potential is small.  Let's say 2 guilds per realm (AVERAGE - some do have more, but some realms have none) running all true end game in the burning crusade.  That's about a guild of needing roughly 40 people who are willing to run a strict raiding schedule for either 2 ten man teams, and 25 man content.  Ok, so now we have roughly 80 people of 3,000 people playing regularly per realm (AVERAGES - some have more some have less).  That is a pretty low percentage of subs actually doing end game to its fullest (i.e. Mount Hyjal, Black Temple content).  Don't you think?

Personally, it was pretty upsetting to see greens dropping with such better stats than some of the gear I had from running end game pre BC.  It didn't matter.  Maybe that is why people left?  The fact they worked so hard at level 60 for months on end to get gear, money, crafting, and to have all that thrown away on their first green drop?  Or was it the dissappointment at how fast 60-70 was acheived?  I guess everyone has a different reason, but I know that Blizzard asks why people are letting their sub expire, what are the responses?  What does Blizzard plan on doing about it?

Just talking to a lot of co workers who have played WoW and still do play WoW, it is our concensus, that those who do not play, would come back if there were a level 60 non BC content realm.  And those who still play, state they will definitely go play on that realm and so would a lot of their guildies.  What does that say?  Ok ok, I'm talking 10 people out of 3.5 million, but so what, we are about 15 people making comments on here.  What does it matter? Maybe cause we still love the game and wish it could get back to its glorious self?

you get a job raiding.  you raid one thing after another, all on your guild's schedule.  you're playing kaplan's game.  the way he likes it!  l2raid noobs!

yet, if they start releasing expansions on a regular basis; they become casual friendly again.

you hit, say, lvl 62/63 in tbc.  are the purps that geniuses raided MONTHS, literal MONTHS for... better than the blues you now possess?

no.

when the next expansion comes out, and everyone can hit 80.... all the people that spents MONTHS (again! didn't they learn???) raiding and repeating the same instances over and over and over ad nauseum (yeah, ad nauseum, i listen to my buds on vent sometimes... yeah, they're having a blast, lemme tell ya... NOT), well, they get shafted by us casuals again....

whatever they've spent all this time farming for... once i hit lvl 73, i trump them with my goodies.   i hit 80, find the eternal grind of stupidity and quit again.

they then raid on endlessly, neglecting work, family and even their own health....  and we get to repeat this process AGAIN... with the next expansion.

nifty little cycle.  dontcha think?

Why do I feel that I was the only one around not surprised that gear became redundant with the new expansion?

It's kind of naive to think this would never happen, considering the whole game revolves around replacing your gear with a slightly stronger set in order to kill the stronger monsters. 

So purples aren't uber anymore?  Gosh, now raiders need to raid again!  How terrible for us!   Or not, really.

Originally posted by damian7

 

you get a job raiding.  you raid one thing after another, all on your guild's schedule.  you're playing kaplan's game.  the way he likes it!  l2raid noobs!

yet, if they start releasing expansions on a regular basis; they become casual friendly again.

 

you hit, say, lvl 62/63 in tbc.  are the purps that geniuses raided MONTHS, literal MONTHS for... better than the blues you now possess?

no.

 

when the next expansion comes out, and everyone can hit 80.... all the people that spents MONTHS (again! didn't they learn???) raiding and repeating the same instances over and over and over ad nauseum (yeah, ad nauseum, i listen to my buds on vent sometimes... yeah, they're having a blast, lemme tell ya... NOT), well, they get shafted by us casuals again....

whatever they've spent all this time farming for... once i hit lvl 73, i trump them with my goodies.   i hit 80, find the eternal grind of stupidity and quit again.

they then raid on endlessly, neglecting work, family and even their own health....  and we get to repeat this process AGAIN... with the next expansion.

 

nifty little cycle.  dontcha think?

Tis why i said with Burning Crusade changed teh game from a progression MMO to a reputation grind MMO, it made everything that was worked for totally and udderly useless, of course unless you wanted to do it all over again, but come the next expansion like you state...

by the way, i chuckled at your post, and we thought strippers were playing the niftiest dirtiest trick on us!!!

I have to be brutally honest here, this was a very uneeded article, it was not proofread, and, well, it was uneeded.  I thought it would be a comparison to other games and looking at key elements, but instead I got a Shattrath general overview that I could find somewhere else.  You need to find a different topic in WoW to write about.

Also Joe, 1 post?  Come on man, you need to stay active on the site you work for!