Its an easy to pick up and play game that looks very good and pleasing to the eye with a high need for better attainable equipment.

That's why this game is successful. Its that simple.

WoW: Old woman!
DENNIS: Man!
WoW: Man. Sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
DENNIS: I'm thirty-seven.
WoW: I-- what?
DENNIS: I'm thirty-seven. I'm not old.
WoW: Well, I can't just call you 'Man'.
DENNIS: Well, you could say 'Dennis'.
WoW: Well, I didn't know you were called 'Dennis'.
DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?
WoW: I did say 'sorry' about the 'old woman', but from the behind you looked--
DENNIS: What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior!
WoW: Well, I am King!
DENNIS: Oh, King, eh, very nice. And how d'you get that, eh? By exploiting
the workers! By 'anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which
perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If
there's ever going to be any progress with the--
WOMAN: Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh! How d'you do?
WoW: How do you do, good lady? I am WoW, King of the MMOs. Who's castle is that?
WOMAN: King of the who?
WoW: The MMO's.
WOMAN: Who are the MMO's?
WoW: Well, we all are. We are all MMO's, and I am your king.
WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship: a self- perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN: Oh, there you go bringing class into it again.
DENNIS: That's what it's all about. If only people would listen--
WoW: Please! Please, good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN: No one lives there.
WoW: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN: We don't have a lord.
WoW: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...
WoW: Yes.
DENNIS: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
WoW: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,...
WoW: Be quiet!
DENNIS: ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--
WoW: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Heh.
WoW: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
WoW: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN: Well, how did you become King, then?
WoW: The Lady of the Lake,...
[angels sing]
...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur
from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I,
WoW, was to carry Excalibur.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no
basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from
a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
WoW: Be quiet!
DENNIS: You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just
'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
WoW: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some
moistened bink had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
WoW: Shut up! Will you please shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system. Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
WoW: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that?  That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?

Originally posted by slask777

Reputation, word of mouth, huge advertising campaign, a big playerbase to pull from already(battlenet), timing, WoW was at the right place, at the right time.

With that all said, their almost 11 million user count is misleading. Lots of people got multiple accounts, the gold farmers got a shitload of them as WoW is their biggest cashcow, they count even those that log on only for 1 hour each month in those internet cafes down in Asia that sell gametime by the hour(no monthly fee, therefore not an active account) and so on.

I wish Blizzard where more honest with their numbers. A more likely number will probably be around 2-3 million shared between US and EU and about the same down in Asia. Still a staggering huge number, but not inflated. We will never know though and my numbers are not any better than wild guesses, though based on personal observation and reasoning.

Anyway, Blizzard do deserve credit for their work and their best sellers and the fact that they release quality games with enough polish to outshine anything else out on the market at releaseday. Just hope they reconsider their stance on Diablo3 and lan play though. Somehow the devs figured people don't play lan anymore so they wont program it for the game. I can understand the piracy issues being solved with this, but as usual in the anti-piracy war, it's the legitimate users getting kicked in the teeth. There is some talk around that Diablo3 will by subscription based for online play ala Hellgate London's system too.

Honest with their numbers... Blizzard say 'active subscriptions' I have two accounts, that's two active subscriptions, in fact in every MMO I have ever played I have always had more than one account. So by that reckoning war only really has about 200K actual players and AOC.... well, I am sure both players are very happy.

regardless of how you count, ~$120M dollars a month is all the ratification you need for a game.

WoW succeeded because it was a solid game, well designed, excellent implementation, reliable (and yeah, I was there at the start and suffered as much as anyone else, but that period passed quickly), good timing, and well promoted.

Regular updates, the expansions introduce immense amounts of new material, not like EQ2 battle packs, which are more akin to the irregular content updates (DM, BWL, AQ, Naxx etc etc...). Add to that the already hyped reputation of Blizzard due to their consitent ability to produce above average games and you have most of the story. Was WoW original, nope, it introduced little in the way of innovation but it popularised a genre that was begging to be brought to the masses and it was done very very well.

Originally posted by Trianon

Originally posted by slask777

Reputation, word of mouth, huge advertising campaign, a big playerbase to pull from already(battlenet), timing, WoW was at the right place, at the right time.

With that all said, their almost 11 million user count is misleading. Lots of people got multiple accounts, the gold farmers got a shitload of them as WoW is their biggest cashcow, they count even those that log on only for 1 hour each month in those internet cafes down in Asia that sell gametime by the hour(no monthly fee, therefore not an active account) and so on.

I wish Blizzard where more honest with their numbers. A more likely number will probably be around 2-3 million shared between US and EU and about the same down in Asia. Still a staggering huge number, but not inflated. We will never know though and my numbers are not any better than wild guesses, though based on personal observation and reasoning.

Anyway, Blizzard do deserve credit for their work and their best sellers and the fact that they release quality games with enough polish to outshine anything else out on the market at releaseday. Just hope they reconsider their stance on Diablo3 and lan play though. Somehow the devs figured people don't play lan anymore so they wont program it for the game. I can understand the piracy issues being solved with this, but as usual in the anti-piracy war, it's the legitimate users getting kicked in the teeth. There is some talk around that Diablo3 will by subscription based for online play ala Hellgate London's system too.

 

 

Honest with their numbers... Blizzard say 'active subscriptions' I have two accounts, that's two active subscriptions, in fact in every MMO I have ever played I have always had more than one account. So by that reckoning war only really has about 200K actual players and AOC.... well, I am sure both players are very happy.

regardless of how you count, ~$120M dollars a month is all the ratification you need for a game.

WoW succeeded because it was a solid game, well designed, excellent implementation, reliable (and yeah, I was there at the start and suffered as much as anyone else, but that period passed quickly), good timing, and well promoted.

Regular updates, the expansions introduce immense amounts of new material, not like EQ2 battle packs, which are more akin to the irregular content updates (DM, BWL, AQ, Naxx etc etc...). Add to that the already hyped reputation of Blizzard due to their consitent ability to produce above average games and you have most of the story. Was WoW original, nope, it introduced little in the way of innovation but it popularised a genre that was begging to be brought to the masses and it was done very very well.

 

Lol..I don't argue any of that. Dunno why you felt the need to argue with me. As I said, it was my personal opinion based on experience and observation. You, nor anyone else can change my opinion about that. Also I wrote 'user count', not 'active subscriptions'.

Anyway, Pappy...Monthy Pyton much???

---

Originally posted by bodypass
Why subs just keep growing - even now - ....
1. My father plays it and he's 78
2. My son plays it and he's 15
3. My brother plays it and he's 37
4. Why? because it's the player who decides WHAT and HOW he plays. (don't ask my father to join arena :) ) but he's the best in fishing).

---

I love the fishing part!

This is a cool thing about WoW anyone can play for hardcore raiders to casual fishers.

Too bad I hate the grind factor and look based on stats.

I had much fun playing WoW at launch.

1. The noob friendliest game around due to the non existant difficulty level.

2. Can run on anything.

3. Blizzard having a huge RTS fanbase, which coupled with number 1, brought a lot of RTS fans into the MMO scene, and they all got into the game real easy due to its lack of difficlty. Then they told their other RTS friends about this awesome new type of game (many didn't know about MMOs at all, and most WoW players still don't know about the MMO market.

4. Very stable game.

5. Not doing anything new at all, stealing all tried and true methods from EverQuest.

6. Watering down all content, making the game heap rewards on you, and kiss your boo boos if you somehow manage to screw it up.

7. No death penalty.

8. X amount of noobs screaming about how its the greatest thing ever, leading to more and more noobs.

9. False subscriber numbers, making people think 8 million can't be wrong! when it doesn't remotely have that many subs.

Did you not read my post ? That's exactly what I said. It seems Wow has soemthing for the illiterate too. I don't hate WoW. Judging by the vehemence of your defence of your game though you are clearly a "Fanboi".  And every game( just about ) has more difficult things about it. you can barely attribute that, in that simple context, as a reason for a games sucess. And why do you keep bringing up your dad? and if you are old enough  to have a 78 year old father, and a son who can play a MMO, why do you say things like "epic fail"?

edit. this is in response to post #23

Originally posted by slask777

Anyway, Pappy...Monthy Pyton much???

Oh thank God somebody understood that post. :)