Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Arthousesig

 

1. WoW: currently has the largest number of subs although this has already dropped down to around 9 million from a high of 11.x million. Around 6 million of the remaining 9 million subs is from the China/East Asia region, and these are likely to drop off the fastest as EU and US subs drop off. The reason for the drop will be a lack of elite PVE content and the migration of top-end guilds to one of the competitors, which the masses will then follow. The nature of the mmo market is such that a game can very rapidly drop in popularity as gamers are a fickle bunch. The demise of WoW is here, and it will be surprisingly swift (2-3 months with 500k subs lost in EU/US each month, much faster in china)

 

2. WAR: currently the 2nd largest mmo in subs, although a very high quality mmo .... 

 

The very mediocre state of both AoC and War is giving WOW a free ride ticket in 2009. Everyone can see this. Only blind fans of both games and DF think otherwise.

The only new chance of tumbling it will come from BioWare or Blizz themselves. All the rest is peanuts scrambling to have a 2% global marketshare.

I'm going to disagree slightly here. While WoW won't find much competition on the Western Front until Star Wars: The old Republic comes out, don't forget about the eastern front. Aion will probably have a decent subscriber base in the west of around 100k ~ 200k, it's very popular in Asia with already having a huge amount of players in Korea, it's set for launch in other asian nations soon.

I think in 2009, Aion is really the only game that might give WoW a little bit of competition.

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Originally posted by x_rast_x

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Originally posted by skychain

From what ive heard ingame and from friends and so on is that most of the Wow players are going to move to Diablo 2 and starcraft 2 both bizzard games so i believe blizzard wont care if WoW goes because they have all these games to come across too lol.

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I didn't feel like reading through seven pages of what I'm sure are mostly fanboys flaming the OP and haters flaming the flaming fanbois, but I can agree with this comment.

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You might be sure it would be seven pages of mostly fanboys flaming and haters flaming in the previous seven pages, but you'd be extremely wrong. You should try skimming a bit more of the comments at least if you're not going to read them but comment in the thread anyway.

If you had done that at least, you'd see what you just typed wasn't original or brought a new viewpoint to this discussion. You basically just held the phone receiver away from your ear while someone else was talking, and now you put it back to your mouth to repeat what they just said. You basically just said "well, I heard some people say.."

How someone could profess ignorance in a thread so proudly in their first sentence and then expect others to read their posts saying similar things is simply amazing.

Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by x_rast_x

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Originally posted by skychain

 

From what ive heard ingame and from friends and so on is that most of the Wow players are going to move to Diablo 2 and starcraft 2 both bizzard games so i believe blizzard wont care if WoW goes because they have all these games to come across too lol.

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I didn't feel like reading through seven pages of what I'm sure are mostly fanboys flaming the OP and haters flaming the flaming fanbois, but I can agree with this comment.

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You might be sure it would be seven pages of mostly fanboys flaming and haters flaming in the previous seven pages, but you'd be extremely wrong. You should try skimming a bit more of the comments at least if you're not going to read them but comment in the thread anyway.

If you had done that at least, you'd see what you just typed wasn't original or brought a new viewpoint to this discussion. You basically just held the phone receiver away from your ear while someone else was talking, and now you put it back to your mouth to repeat what they just said. You basically just said "well, I heard some people say.."

How someone could profess ignorance in a thread so proudly in their first sentence and then expect others to read their posts saying similar things is simply amazing.

You just flamed him, making what he said true.

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Originally posted by BizkitNL

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Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by x_rast_x

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Originally posted by skychain
 
From what ive heard ingame and from friends and so on is that most of the Wow players are going to move to Diablo 2 and starcraft 2 both bizzard games so i believe blizzard wont care if WoW goes because they have all these games to come across too lol.

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I didn't feel like reading through seven pages of what I'm sure are mostly fanboys flaming the OP and haters flaming the flaming fanbois, but I can agree with this comment.

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You might be sure it would be seven pages of mostly fanboys flaming and haters flaming in the previous seven pages, but you'd be extremely wrong. You should try skimming a bit more of the comments at least if you're not going to read them but comment in the thread anyway.
If you had done that at least, you'd see what you just typed wasn't original or brought a new viewpoint to this discussion. You basically just held the phone receiver away from your ear while someone else was talking, and now you put it back to your mouth to repeat what they just said. You basically just said "well, I heard some people say.."
How someone could profess ignorance in a thread so proudly in their first sentence and then expect others to read their posts saying similar things is simply amazing.

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You just flamed him, making what he said true.

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So by me "flaming" him once, that makes seven pages true? Ok... I guess you're right. Can't argue with that logic, it's airtight.

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Originally posted by Arthousesig
For those who might remember me, I predicted the rapid demise of Age of Conan back in June 2008, looking purely at the game mechanics and the nature of the game itself. This was at the same time review magazines were throwing around scores of 9/10 for AOC, but it was obvious the game would die from playing the game, which is how I make my predictions :)
I am a long time MMO player starting off in Ultima Online days, through L2, AO, EVE, EQ1 (but not 2) WoW, WAR and LOTRO.
 
Looking at the incentive structure of the current top MMOs by subscription numbers, these are my predictions for January-April 2009:
 
1. WoW: currently has the largest number of subs although this has already dropped down to around 9 million from a high of 11.x million. Around 6 million of the remaining 9 million subs is from the China/East Asia region, and these are likely to drop off the fastest as EU and US subs drop off. The reason for the drop will be a lack of elite PVE content and the migration of top-end guilds to one of the competitors, which the masses will then follow. The nature of the mmo market is such that a game can very rapidly drop in popularity as gamers are a fickle bunch. The demise of WoW is here, and it will be surprisingly swift (2-3 months with 500k subs lost in EU/US each month, much faster in china)

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Here ya go Nostradamus... You were right. Announced by Blizzard for January.

---

We will be offering free character moves from selected high population realms to a brand new PvE realm, Garrosh, to assist in population dispersal. The ability to move a character from the selected source realms is scheduled to run until Wednesday, January 14, 6:00 pm PST. Garrosh is an eastern timezone realm on the Emberstorm battlegroup.

In the event that these realms meet our transfer goals before the scheduled end date, the transfers to that realm will be disabled. We highly recommend that if you are planning to transfer that you do so at your earliest convenience. No characters will be eligible for these free moves once the transfers have been closed.

You can begin your transfer by visiting the Character Move page located here: https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/character-move.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source (PvE/RP)
Aggramar (Alliance Transfers Only)
Alleria (Alliance Transfers Only)
Argent Dawn
Azjol-Nerub
Blackhand
Bloodhoof
Cenarius
Dalaran
Doomhammer
Draenor
Dragonblight
Earthen Ring
Hellscream
Icecrown
Lightbringer (Alliance Transfers Only)
Medivh
Silvermoon
Whisperwind
Zul'jin

Destination (PvE)
Garrosh (Eastern)

---

Well, guess there goes your January prediction. Don't worry, you still got a whole 11 more months to be wrong. 500k subs leaving in a few months eh? Just keep us updated on how the whole prediction business is working out for you.

Anyone else still want to tag on with this guy because it's popular to WoW bash in the face of common sense and facts?

For all you wow fanboys out there. The game is dying. Increase from 9 mill subs to 11.5? After Lich king? Get real. Go look at wow census and see how many people play. There's a max of 2.5 mil in the US that play. Majority of wow players are multi boxers from asia. When the US population decreases the asia population will dramatically decrease due to revenue loss. If you stop your addiction thought process for a second and follow this logic, you will see this. Obviously blizzard isn't going to report that subs have dropped, because it's bad for business. In fact last time they reported subscriptions was mid last year before the first exodus right before lich king.

There's so many wow fanboys here it is ridiculous. Wow seriously 1k people on your server? That's pretty amazing considering only 5-6 servers are every in queue anymore. So 6k -10k people online at once really equates to 11.5 million right? You look at the servers and 60% of them are dead or dying with < than 1k people TOTAL on the server. Your fantasy over this game is astounding. You can still play the game without being fanatic about it.

Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by Arthousesig
For those who might remember me, I predicted the rapid demise of Age of Conan back in June 2008, looking purely at the game mechanics and the nature of the game itself. This was at the same time review magazines were throwing around scores of 9/10 for AOC, but it was obvious the game would die from playing the game, which is how I make my predictions :)
I am a long time MMO player starting off in Ultima Online days, through L2, AO, EVE, EQ1 (but not 2) WoW, WAR and LOTRO.
 
Looking at the incentive structure of the current top MMOs by subscription numbers, these are my predictions for January-April 2009:
 
1. WoW: currently has the largest number of subs although this has already dropped down to around 9 million from a high of 11.x million. Around 6 million of the remaining 9 million subs is from the China/East Asia region, and these are likely to drop off the fastest as EU and US subs drop off. The reason for the drop will be a lack of elite PVE content and the migration of top-end guilds to one of the competitors, which the masses will then follow. The nature of the mmo market is such that a game can very rapidly drop in popularity as gamers are a fickle bunch. The demise of WoW is here, and it will be surprisingly swift (2-3 months with 500k subs lost in EU/US each month, much faster in china)

---

 

Here ya go Nostradamus... You were right. Announced by Blizzard for January.

---

We will be offering free character moves from selected high population realms to a brand new PvE realm, Garrosh, to assist in population dispersal. The ability to move a character from the selected source realms is scheduled to run until Wednesday, January 14, 6:00 pm PST. Garrosh is an eastern timezone realm on the Emberstorm battlegroup.

 

In the event that these realms meet our transfer goals before the scheduled end date, the transfers to that realm will be disabled. We highly recommend that if you are planning to transfer that you do so at your earliest convenience. No characters will be eligible for these free moves once the transfers have been closed.

You can begin your transfer by visiting the Character Move page located here: https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/character-move.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source (PvE/RP)
Aggramar (Alliance Transfers Only)
Alleria (Alliance Transfers Only)
Argent Dawn
Azjol-Nerub
Blackhand
Bloodhoof
Cenarius
Dalaran
Doomhammer
Draenor
Dragonblight
Earthen Ring
Hellscream
Icecrown
Lightbringer (Alliance Transfers Only)
Medivh
Silvermoon
Whisperwind
Zul'jin

Destination (PvE)
Garrosh (Eastern)

---

 

Well, guess there goes your January prediction. Don't worry, you still got a whole 11 more months to be wrong. 500k subs leaving in a few months eh? Just keep us updated on how the whole prediction business is working out for you.

Anyone else still want to tag on with this guy because it's popular to WoW bash in the face of common sense and facts?

 

So because 5 of those servers you reported are high population and the rest are medium he is wrong and you are right? Only reason there was only a mere TWO new servers with new expac, was because people demanded it. So because 5 servers are full you think there is 1 million people that play on those 5 servers? Try more like 100k on the top 5 servers. Go checkout wow census.

There will not be 500k a month to leave wow, but it will steadily grow over the year to where at the end of the year it will be about 50-70% only remaining. Not a huge drop off and it all depends on other games like darkfall. Plus the wow addiction which you obviously have keeps people around. Honestly tell me why do you play the game? It's not the fun factor as everything is the same. WoW = a drug.

WoW just has less to offer for everyone exept the most diehard WoW fanboi. The only reason people stay is their friends or guild stubbornly stay there enjoying the EZ mode. As for Casuals on WoW the other word for them is Bottom Feeders when the big fish at the top start to go there wont be anything for them to bite on. I also assume correctly that WoWs total number of players is a LIE its just about as true as Runescapes claims to 20+ million players lol or Ragnorak online. The only differance is WoW has the media money to buy commercials with Mr. T  and lie Even better than other games about how many players play, I am sure most of the players on the 12mil or so list, it grows by 500,000 a week according to fanbois but im sure most of them are inactive and pissed at WoW. The Rest are just DK rerolls who couldn't figure out what strafing was with their huntard, which is why 90% of current players are DKs.

As to why they will leave and what game will replace wow, it doesn't matter, Even if no game comes and DF fails terribly, GW2 comes out and is also bad Spellborns US release is not so good and any of the other new games coming out also have terrible glitchy releases many of us would rather not play an MMO than go back to WoW. At this point no game at all is better than WoW, but I started out on shooters I'll just play Unreal or something shrug.

Anyone who uses the word "exodus" is wrong, no matter what they're talking about. they're just wrong.

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Originally posted by loxleynew

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Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by Arthousesig
For those who might remember me, I predicted the rapid demise of Age of Conan back in June 2008, looking purely at the game mechanics and the nature of the game itself. This was at the same time review magazines were throwing around scores of 9/10 for AOC, but it was obvious the game would die from playing the game, which is how I make my predictions :)
I am a long time MMO player starting off in Ultima Online days, through L2, AO, EVE, EQ1 (but not 2) WoW, WAR and LOTRO.
 
Looking at the incentive structure of the current top MMOs by subscription numbers, these are my predictions for January-April 2009:
 
1. WoW: currently has the largest number of subs although this has already dropped down to around 9 million from a high of 11.x million. Around 6 million of the remaining 9 million subs is from the China/East Asia region, and these are likely to drop off the fastest as EU and US subs drop off. The reason for the drop will be a lack of elite PVE content and the migration of top-end guilds to one of the competitors, which the masses will then follow. The nature of the mmo market is such that a game can very rapidly drop in popularity as gamers are a fickle bunch. The demise of WoW is here, and it will be surprisingly swift (2-3 months with 500k subs lost in EU/US each month, much faster in china)

 
Here ya go Nostradamus... You were right. Announced by Blizzard for January.

We will be offering free character moves from selected high population realms to a brand new PvE realm, Garrosh, to assist in population dispersal. The ability to move a character from the selected source realms is scheduled to run until Wednesday, January 14, 6:00 pm PST. Garrosh is an eastern timezone realm on the Emberstorm battlegroup.
 
In the event that these realms meet our transfer goals before the scheduled end date, the transfers to that realm will be disabled. We highly recommend that if you are planning to transfer that you do so at your earliest convenience. No characters will be eligible for these free moves once the transfers have been closed.
You can begin your transfer by visiting the Character Move page located here: https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/character-move.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source (PvE/RP)
Aggramar (Alliance Transfers Only)
Alleria (Alliance Transfers Only)
Argent Dawn
Azjol-Nerub
Blackhand
Bloodhoof
Cenarius
Dalaran
Doomhammer
Draenor
Dragonblight
Earthen Ring
Hellscream
Icecrown
Lightbringer (Alliance Transfers Only)
Medivh
Silvermoon
Whisperwind
Zul'jin

Destination (PvE)
Garrosh (Eastern)

---

 

Well, guess there goes your January prediction. Don't worry, you still got a whole 11 more months to be wrong. 500k subs leaving in a few months eh? Just keep us updated on how the whole prediction business is working out for you.
Anyone else still want to tag on with this guy because it's popular to WoW bash in the face of common sense and facts?
 

---

 
So because 5 of those servers you reported are high population and the rest are medium he is wrong and you are right? Only reason there was only a mere TWO new servers with new expac, was because people demanded it. So because 5 servers are full you think there is 1 million people that play on those 5 servers? Try more like 100k on the top 5 servers. Go checkout wow census.
 
There will not be 500k a month to leave wow, but it will steadily grow over the year to where at the end of the year it will be about 50-70% only remaining. Not a huge drop off and it all depends on other games like darkfall. Plus the wow addiction which you obviously have keeps people around. Honestly tell me why do you play the game? It's not the fun factor as everything is the same. WoW = a drug.

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So are you suggesting that Blizzard just announces that they are opening a new server up due to population EXCESSES and long queues as just a clever and elaborate ruse? And games like Warhammer don't really "close" servers due to the people who have already left in droves, but are 'thriving'?

I get it: people are starting to leave Wow so heavy, that Blizzard opens a new server to distract people from that fact, kinda like misdirection, right?

This just gets funnier and funnier. Someone please take notes so this can be put into a comedy routine for MaDTV.

I logged into, or tried to anyway, emerald dream on Sunday.  There was a 1019 person que, with an estimated wait time of 93 minutes.  Decided to play a different game at that point.

Doesn't look like they are dying, or even in danger of dying to me.

Venge Sunsoar

Originally posted by Gameloading

Originally posted by Gravarg

I'm not a War fanboy.  I don't even have a sub active right now.  Just saying that with no new content from WotLk, alot of people will be looking for a new MMO to go to, and WAR will be it most likely.

 

No they don't. Keep in mind that every single word you have posted here has been said for 4 years now, especialy after the launch of Burning Crusade. Yes, every single one of your claims have been said before, and it never happened. This time isn't going to be any different.

Also, There is no shame to being honnest you know. When you say "Aion looks like f2p asian grinders", you ofcourse actually mean "I have not done any research on the game whatsoever and I just build my entire opinion based on the fact it's made by an asian developer"

Well now, in all fairness Gameloading, the game is being developed by NCSoft, who brought us two of the biggest Asian Grinders (might have actually invented them) with Lineage 1 and Lineage 2. 

Of course, they have many other titles that are not grind games (usually made by outside, western based development studios though)

But its understandable that some folks are skeptical that NCSoft can create a game that doesn't follow their past pattern.

Myself, I've not done much research on AION, am really waiting till a western release is announced, however I am taking the word of you and other posters who state that it isn't "yet another asian grindfest"

I look forward to giving it a try this year, because I agree with you, it might be the only title this year that will draw serious sub numbers besides WOW.

Eventually WoW will level off in terms of subscribers. There are only so many people who want to play an MMO. I doubt, however, that there will be a mass exodus from it. Let's look at some numbers. 

It's subscribers currently hover around 12 million. If we can just assume for a minute that the average teenager/young adult male plays video games of one kind or another; then they are potentially an MMO convert. I'm 31, have played video games since they became a form of home entertainment in the early to mid-1980's and just started playing MMO's (EQ2) this year. It's possible for non-players to become players, even later in life.

Ok. So how many  males are there in the US alone? According to census projections there are approximately 14 million males ages 14 though 17, and another 15 million males ages 18 through 24. That is just the tip of the potential subscriber iceberg, however, when one considers the average MMO player is 26 years old. Between the ages of 25 and 44 (we all know the guy who is semi-retired and plays online all day) there are almost 42 million males. Totalled that is 71,000,000 males between the ages of 14 and 44. Even if only 50% play video games that still leaves 35,500,000 males, who could potentially pick up WoW to see what all the fuss is about.  That is the United States alone, and does not, of course, include women who like to play video games. There are far less that do, but certainly hundreds of thousands if not a few million.

When one considers that WoW has 11.5 to 12 million world wide subscribers, and the sheer number of potential players, there is little reason to think their subscriber base would do anything but go up. Especially since there is no real competition for it. Most other games have subscribing numbers below a million. Granted some asian games have more than that, but not in the United States for the most part.

I am probably even gonna pick up WoW at some point to see what all the fuss is about. I have a friend or two that play it, so it'd be more fun than soloing all the time in EQ2, even though I really like that game.

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Originally posted by CujoSWAoA
Anyone who uses the word "exodus" is wrong, no matter what they're talking about. they're just wrong.

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Generally yes, but in Warhammer's case the word "exodus" as it's defined was quite appropriate. A "departure of a large number of people" happened in Warhammer, from 800k subscriptions the first month to now around 300k. That's over half a million people who voted with their feet. That sounds just like the Hebrews leaving Egypt and running from Pharoah across the sea. Warhammer is the most quintessential embodiment of the word "exodus." (except for AoC as well)

If someone had $800k in the bank, then got a statement saying only $300k was left, would that seem successful to any of you?

Not for this game thought. The word that comes to mind for a game STILL opening servers after five years is "juggernaut", "bankable", "proven". Things like that.

as a side note, mainly because predicting wow to loose massive amounts of players due to x mmo is silly,  Aion is looking like the quests drop  off by 20 leaving you with a progressivly worse grind untill the last 10 levels its 5% quest xp and 95% grind - now that may be because high end quests are to be released for the NA/EU market or not,

There was a link in one of the aion forums to some graphs with the xp required broken down into xp by quest and xp by grind.

honesly though if the "grind" is exploring dungeons, fighting waves of monsters with cool attacks and spread across many different zones it would be that bad, not sure I want to go back to EQ1 days of sitting in the same spot for 5 hours (although I did make some good friends that way)  excessive questing is almost as bad as excessive grinding - I know in wow that i only read quests to find out what to kill etc and most of the quest there are grinding mobs for quest items instead of just grinding mobs...

but yes, back on subject - people will dabble in other mmo's as they come out depending on their interested - a lot of the wow players i know went and tried WAR and most returned - some kept both accounts and a few didnt return back to WoW.

I came to WoW from EQ2 and when playing EQ2 we had plenty of players turning up from WoW and some stayed, some didnt

I think that the difficutly is now that people expect their mmo's to be released with the same content of WoW -if you look at most of the threads (mostly) about the last few games its been bugs and lack of content have seen to be terrible sins (maybe they are /shrug) but if you cast your mind back to the release of EQ2, WoW and the other games about that time they were all released "too soon" with bugs and lack of high level content. Because WoW has been adding free and not free content for all these years it has such a rich gaming world that a new start company cannot hope to complete with it, unfortunatly I think players do not accept that a new start company = less time to produce content that a 5 yo behemoth.

Mylin

Clearly the OP is a genius.  I mean he actually predicted the demise of AoC! 

I suppose announcing new servers is a sign of WoW's apocolypse; not to mention record sales.   Of course, this is all Blizzard propaganda.

I've been watching this thread and I really find it sort of funny, in a sad sort of way. I'm no fanboi of WoW, as a matter of fact I tend to jump around from mmo to mmo, never staying in any single mmo more than 2 or 3 months at a time.

What I see here isn't fanbois defending their game versus the average open minded gamer. Rather, what I see is a bunch of average open minded gamers who point out the obvious that WoW isn't falling off in subscription numbers, versus....well, whatever the opposite of a fanboi is who are almost foaming at the mouth at the very idea that WoW is maintaining it's subscription rate. You people hate the game way more than what's good for you.

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Originally posted by IcoGames
Clearly the OP is a genius.  I mean he actually predicted the demise of AoC! 
I suppose announcing new servers is a sign of WoW's apocolypse; not to mention record sales.   Of course, this is all Blizzard propaganda.

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Those crazy Blizzard execs!

They celebrate impending losses by opening new servers! What a buncha crazy old hoots they are!

Yeeehaaa!

I don't mind haters at all of any game, I just don't like haters without facts to back the hate up.

Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by IcoGames
Clearly the OP is a genius.  I mean he actually predicted the demise of AoC! 
I suppose announcing new servers is a sign of WoW's apocolypse; not to mention record sales.   Of course, this is all Blizzard propaganda.

---

 

Those crazy Blizzard execs!

They celebrate impending losses by opening new servers! What a buncha crazy old hoots they are!

Yeeehaaa!

I don't mind haters at all of any game, I just don't like haters without facts to back the hate up.

Before they open new servers maybe they should do something about the Entire Retaliation Battlegroup having low servers on every single server exept maybe area 52. The new servers your drooling over are probably the new South American servers. Fanboi logic gotta love it.

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Originally posted by Mwaji

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Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by IcoGames
Clearly the OP is a genius.  I mean he actually predicted the demise of AoC! 
I suppose announcing new servers is a sign of WoW's apocolypse; not to mention record sales.   Of course, this is all Blizzard propaganda.

---

 

Those crazy Blizzard execs!
They celebrate impending losses by opening new servers! What a buncha crazy old hoots they are!
Yeeehaaa!

I don't mind haters at all of any game, I just don't like haters without facts to back the hate up.

---

 
Before they open new servers maybe they should do something about the Entire Retaliation Battlegroup having low servers on every single server exept maybe area 52. The new servers your drooling over are probably the new South American servers. Fanboi logic gotta love it.

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