WoW went wrong for me when it became nothing but raiding for end game.  This is a problem I have found in every MMO I've played so far, but it was a much greater disappointment in WoW because of it's early dedication to casual game play and ended up doing a complete 180.  It was a sense of great betrayal for me.

i am not sure if someone posted what i am about to say, but frankly...i don't have the will to read every post about this.

Simply put,

It is a business. Sure, they could've done this should've done that. Whatever. Bottom line is, people played it, loved it and a lot are still playing it.

I am not anymore, i used to love this game. Quit after BC. one of the few to have downed Rag,Nef,Cthun, and KT. So don't brand me as fanboi, because i don't like this game anymore

Originally posted by Ilgauskas

Originally posted by Zorndorf

------> With present day limits of server capacity (3.5K people concurrently on line) in fantasy games it is no easy task. But apparently they still succeed in it. Have you any other idea how to do it? They don't have an alternative but to concentrate people around their new expansion content ... and apparently it works.

 

 

Hello,

Knowing that you always try to back up your statements with some kind of proof (stats, researches) I would like to ask you something. How do you know how many players can be online in WoW's realm? Where do you get such an info? Can you post a link? Thanks in advance.


By the way, I would like to disagree that 3.5k is the current limitation. In Russian Lineage 2 retail servers there are 5k+ players online every evening. Here is the photo of the server stats that you can check at anytime. You may ask why is there an 5000 player cap so I'll answer in advance. It is created because Russian retail follows an F2P model. If you want to login when there are more than 5000 players online, you have to pay.


Ilgauskas

 

I could point out several posts who talk about this....

But perhaps this one is rather clear :

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/activity.php

You can see the average activity per server. The average showing a 2600-2800 player activity spread out over Horde and Alliance.

Now I do know the warcraftrealms data are way off these days for showing accurate population data due to the fact that there simply are too many servers to track down overall data of server pops. Very few people still install the census plus program of the site, so if one server only depends on a handful of sampled data, results are way off in guessing total populations per server.

But this graph shows an average, independant of individual server tracking and is a good overview.

That graph didn't change much btw in the last 2 years. So since the medium population is about standard at night, it would show the critical point at the moment is around 3.5 K simultanious connections. Certainly not 7 or 8 K like some would think.

And since Blizard uses the latest technology to support a fantasy world mmorpg (with not even big chunks of advanced data handling - like extensive LOS or collission detections (which would increase the data considerably), I am quite sure this is about the same for every other decently developped fantasy game out there.

Not talking of a game like EVE where you don't have such trivial things as a landscape, trees, rivers, gravity etc...

So yes the boundaries of today's standards are pretty much limited.

Also quite a few developpers themselves say that the server count is around 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 concurrent players per server. See some Mark Jacobs interviews for that at the time of launch of War.

So in general you have about 10 K subscribers per server of which 1/3 to 1/4 are concurrently on line.

The fluidity of the mmorpg itself is than dependant of the engine itself. And WAR clearly has difficulties with larger server populations. But that's the fault of the engine and on line server client coding ( a problem they already had with DAoC).

---

I would say that the next big challenge for Blizzard in their next mmorpg would be the use of some kind of clustered server technology to access the worlds (something they do with their clustered BG servers and or instanced servers).

I could imagine a space game where individual planets could consist of clustered servers, allowing far more than 10K players per planet. It's not that simple btw as interaction and a "road" for players still has to be free

With a rough calculation of 10 K subs per server (not all on line at the same time), it is also a good guess what the max capacity is of certain (FTP) games that claim to have "millions" of players btw. Like Aion: on the lastest count they have around 160 servers, that would mean they would have a max capacity of 1.600.000 subs. Not even near the so called 3.5 M they claim to have. But that's another story of course.

Originally posted by Vrazule

WoW went wrong for me when it became nothing but raiding for end game.  This is a problem I have found in every MMO I've played so far, but it was a much greater disappointment in WoW because of it's early dedication to casual game play and ended up doing a complete 180.  It was a sense of great betrayal for me.

I understand what you mean. I don't like to Raid more than once a week (and my wife doesn't like it either for obvious reasons). But apart from the weapons that drop in those Raids, I don't need much of their drops when doing PvP, my favorite kind of playing these days. And even at 1850 you could buy PvP weapons (too high requirement for the average player btw).

So "nothing but raiding" is not completely true if you like to do all different kinds of PvP (incl. world pvp). PvP gear is far better than what drops in those PVE Raids.

Apparently someone at Blizzard found that since TBC patch 2.2 (summer 2007), people were doing not enough raids. So they lowered the Raid difficulty in the early Wotk Raids. But indeed with the intro of the much more difficult Ulduar, raids become less open for "casual raiders". VOA2 is jst a silly mistake (they should have seperated it from VOA1).

I am curious what Blizzard will do in patch 3.2. Perhaps they'll open up PvP weapons again for the casual player.

What they did right though is giving some very good crafted gear and weapons that actually sell in the end game (even blue PvP resilience crafted gear). A very good addtition compared to earlier Wow. I use it on a kind of super twink at lvl 78/79 at the moment.

The game went wrong when expansions came out. Shit is too easy now.

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

If world of warcraft is wrong... whos right?

 

These guys just made it into the guiniess book of world records, i think it safe to say they are winning the war.

By this Logic, Brittney Spears is the greatest singer EVER!! Sales don't mean everything.

Oh, and I chose "faster leveling" as the worst, but it looks like I'm in the manority. The expansion option was my second choice (a very close second). Not to compare the games, but I remembered thinking how I liked GW expansion setup over the WoW method.

Originally posted by Bjornulve

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

If world of warcraft is wrong... whos right?

 

These guys just made it into the guiniess book of world records, i think it safe to say they are winning the war.

 

By this Logic, Brittney Spears is the greatest singer EVER!! Sales don't mean everything.

Oh, and I chose "faster leveling" as the worst, but it looks like I'm in the manority. The expansion option was my second choice (a very close second). Not to compare the games, but I remembered thinking how I liked GW expansion setup over the WoW method.

Again, people don't get it. Success and quality are not linked and are not one and the same.

Sales mean WOW is successful. That is a quanitative statistic.

Quality is subjective. However, since WOW has sols so much, great quality is inferred.

A good example are movies that win Oscars. Usually these movies are great (qualitative assessment) but they do not do well at the box office (quanitative assessment).

The opposite is true as well - successful movies at the box office (Dark Knight, Star trek, The Hangover) rarely do well at the Oscars.

So your comparison/analogy is a failure. As are any refernces to McD's, Spears, etc.... Nobody but the individual can make a qualitative assessment (her music is good/bad/horrible/great) but her success its undeniable.

---

Originally posted by templarga
Again, people don't get it. Success and quality are not linked and are not one and the same.Quality is subjective. However, since WOW has sols so much, great quality is inferred. A good example are movies that win Oscars. Usually these movies are great (qualitative assessment) but they do not do well at the box office (quanitative assessment). The opposite is true as well - successful movies at the box office (Dark Knight, Star trek, The Hangover) rarely do well at the Oscars.

---

I think you may have that a little mixed up too. Success and quality are not "ALWAYS" linked, but that does not mean that they are not linked sometimes! To use your own analogy, where would you fall with 'Titanic'? Huge commercial success as well as a huge oscar winner?

Every now and again something comes along with the right idea, that certain something that captures the audiences imagination and WOW has been one of those things. Everyone that plays has their own reasons for liking it. The one thing that differs from the whole movie/music thing though is that people are paying to play this every month, so there has to be an element of 'quality' however each individual player qualifies it to keep them paying and playing.

Originally posted by jason_webb

 

---

Originally posted by templarga
Again, people don't get it. Success and quality are not linked and are not one and the same.Quality is subjective. However, since WOW has sols so much, great quality is inferred. A good example are movies that win Oscars. Usually these movies are great (qualitative assessment) but they do not do well at the box office (quanitative assessment). The opposite is true as well - successful movies at the box office (Dark Knight, Star trek, The Hangover) rarely do well at the Oscars.

---

 

I think you may have that a little mixed up too. Success and quality are not "ALWAYS" linked, but that does not mean that they are not linked sometimes! To use your own analogy, where would you fall with 'Titanic'? Huge commercial success as well as a huge oscar winner?

Every now and again something comes along with the right idea, that certain something that captures the audiences imagination and WOW has been one of those things. Everyone that plays has their own reasons for liking it. The one thing that differs from the whole movie/music thing though is that people are paying to play this every month, so there has to be an element of 'quality' however each individual player qualifies it to keep them paying and playing.

Titanic like WOW is a phenomenon. One comes along every so often and does the impossible (massive $$ and Oscars or 12 million subs).

It does not happen that often and when it does, it is usually quite a shock.

Personally, I didn't like Titanic and still have no idea why it won Oscars. Maybe, like WOW is came along ata  time when the market was crap. :)

Originally posted by Bjornulve

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

If world of warcraft is wrong... whos right?

 

These guys just made it into the guiniess book of world records, i think it safe to say they are winning the war.

 

By this Logic, Brittney Spears is the greatest singer EVER!! Sales don't mean everything.

Oh, and I chose "faster leveling" as the worst, but it looks like I'm in the manority. The expansion option was my second choice (a very close second). Not to compare the games, but I remembered thinking how I liked GW expansion setup over the WoW method.

Oh ok! So WOW is the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus of MMOs? 

The biggest mistake wow made was neglecting world pvp. Battlegrounds were a mistake that took pvp from being fun and challenging to an instanced grindfest. I remember WOW in beta and in the first few months after it launched when guilds would have these mini wars just because they were fun. If blizzard had been smart they would have put WAR-esque keeps on the world map and have the horde and alliance fight over them, they actually tried this in TBC but it was too little too late and having allready introduced battleground no one was interested.

The only reason WoW has so many complaints is because of the ratio of people who don't play any more in WoW to people who don't play XYZ game. If you think about it, people complain a lot about WoW, but it has it's well known 12+ million subs, so proportionally, there are a lot of people who will complain. When you think about Darkfall or other MMO's, if not all, none have as impressive subs numbers like WoW (as if it will ever happen), but there are still complaints about them being boring, a grind in x, y, or z category, too linear, not linear enough, too sandboxy, not sandboxy enough, no customization, etc.

Just my 2c

Originally posted by templarga

Originally posted by jason_webb

 

---

Originally posted by templarga
Again, people don't get it. Success and quality are not linked and are not one and the same.Quality is subjective. However, since WOW has sols so much, great quality is inferred. A good example are movies that win Oscars. Usually these movies are great (qualitative assessment) but they do not do well at the box office (quanitative assessment). The opposite is true as well - successful movies at the box office (Dark Knight, Star trek, The Hangover) rarely do well at the Oscars.

---

 

I think you may have that a little mixed up too. Success and quality are not "ALWAYS" linked, but that does not mean that they are not linked sometimes! To use your own analogy, where would you fall with 'Titanic'? Huge commercial success as well as a huge oscar winner?

Every now and again something comes along with the right idea, that certain something that captures the audiences imagination and WOW has been one of those things. Everyone that plays has their own reasons for liking it. The one thing that differs from the whole movie/music thing though is that people are paying to play this every month, so there has to be an element of 'quality' however each individual player qualifies it to keep them paying and playing.

Titanic like WOW is a phenomenon. One comes along every so often and does the impossible (massive $$ and Oscars or 12 million subs).

It does not happen that often and when it does, it is usually quite a shock.

Personally, I didn't like Titanic and still have no idea why it won Oscars. Maybe, like WOW is came along ata  time when the market was crap. :)

just to point out the titantic itself was a big ship which was ment to be unsinkable .it was  very popular and sunk without a trace in a short space of time lol .

ps i do know your on about the movie  :)

your right warcraft is really only there because its the best of a bad bunch at the moment . that virtual monopoly ends as soon as an mmo is released that has mass appeal . within the next few years (maybe this year) thats bound to happen . its when something like that comes along people move on . think of it like this myspace was very popular but more people now use facebook .

warcraft is simply this . the first mmo that realised is full potential . there were ones before it that had a niche market and unfortunatly all since have as well . another mmo will come along because the rewards are so high for the company that gets it right .

the mmos of tomorrow will offer far greater depth of gameplay and far better graphics as the technology improves . warcraft simply cannot hope to maintain its popularity . with each year that passes its game engine looks more and more dated .

that aside i think it proberbly would have been as successful and it would have kept being popular longer if blizzard had not  made some of the choices it has done.

i think warcrafts on the bubble and it wont be too long now before it bursts .

Originally posted by arthen999

Originally posted by templarga

Titanic like WOW is a phenomenon. One comes along every so often and does the impossible (massive $$ and Oscars or 12 million subs).

It does not happen that often and when it does, it is usually quite a shock.

Personally, I didn't like Titanic and still have no idea why it won Oscars. Maybe, like WOW is came along ata  time when the market was crap. :)

 

just to point out the titantic itself was a big ship which was ment to be unsinkable .it was  very popular and sunk without a trace in a short space of time lol .

ps i do know your on about the movie  :)

your right warcraft is really only there because its the best of a bad bunch at the moment . that virtual monopoly ends as soon as an mmo is released that has mass appeal . within the next few years (maybe this year) thats bound to happen . its when something like that comes along people move on . think of it like this myspace was very popular but more people now use facebook .

warcraft is simply this . the first mmo that realised is full potential . there were ones before it that had a niche market and unfortunatly all since have as well . another mmo will come along because the rewards are so high for the company that gets it right .

the mmos of tomorrow will offer far greater depth of gameplay and far better graphics as the technology improves . warcraft simply cannot hope to maintain its popularity . with each year that passes its game engine looks more and more dated .

that aside i think it proberbly would have been as successful and it would have kept being popular longer if blizzard had not  made some of the choices it has done.

i think warcrafts on the bubble and it wont be too long now before it bursts .

The problem with posts like these is that the author thinks from his own belly.

But HE is not the center of the universe. HE is not even near the epic center of anything. HE is a guy who plays a game and now thinks something new must happen to "save" the mmorpg industry. .... Laughs.

-----

First an industry or market or game situation is made by ... all the players. Not only Blizzard. So to view and analyse the situation is looking at the industry as a whole with ALL its competitiors and not looking at a personal experience from one particular player (both as gamemaker and player of a certain game).

That leads us to Xn (where X is every mmo maker in the field) and Sn (the strategy that is being applied to reach the goal of succeeding in the field).

Simplified it would mean that the more mmo's are launched with the same strategy and goals the main winner of the field has, the more the situation leads to confirmation of the existent situation. (Xn + Sn) = Wow winner situation.

Or applied otherwise: the more mmo's with same strategies, the bigger Wow gets.

------

I am quite sure the 2009 situation is equal to 2007 where the winter of that year showed an even bigger Wow without even having an expansion pack published (as Vanguard and Lotro and some others in fact reinforced the position of post TBC past 10 months).

There is no way that Wow's bubble would burst in the present day market situation. Simply by the fact that the market is created by players who address the same strategy situation where Wow is already using the winning strategy tacitics.

The problem with the poster (and the OP) is that ... he views things from his own perspective, not from within the market.

There are rather simple things to remedy these views: just look at the sales charts lists of present day PC games. Every day NEW players buy the game and every day the strategic situation is confirmed by ALL the other players (publishers) in the mmorgp field. Every War copy sold is free publicity for Wow.

Trivial things - like graphics - are only that: trivial. Blizzard already showed it is very easy to up the graphics (just look at the polycounts used on new armor in Northrend) and besides mmorpg's simply can't use latest graphics on its client sides without hampering gameplay with extreme long loading graphics screens and very laggy gameplay (HD's just can't keep up with unexpected data).

But the core thing is quite easy to grasp: as long as every other player competes with the same strategies, Wow stays on top in the global field. Only when a drastic new strategy would be implied (complete different gameplay) OR a market situation would be blown up (by economic or political reasons) the situation would change.

And by complete different gameplay I mean COMPLETE different experiences, not some kindergarten sandbox or change "boars to kill" to pigs in space things or "this class is OP now" or "PvP/PVE needs Z new elements". That's peanuts.

Originally posted by FlyMastaFlow

The only reason WoW has so many complaints is because of the ratio of people who don't play any more in WoW to people who don't play XYZ game. If you think about it, people complain a lot about WoW, but it has it's well known 12+ million subs, so proportionally, there are a lot of people who will complain. When you think about Darkfall or other MMO's, if not all, none have as impressive subs numbers like WoW (as if it will ever happen), but there are still complaints about them being boring, a grind in x, y, or z category, too linear, not linear enough, too sandboxy, not sandboxy enough, no customization, etc.

 

Just my 2c

I think that the 5+ million chinamen who plays WoW complains as well.

What WoW missed the boat on:

Open world PvP

Character customization

Additional Races

Additional Classes

............

You do realise that if WoW suddenly did burst and every one jumped ship that it would probably kill the MMO market all together, no one would be pushing for MMOs any more and the fact that WoW made signifigant growth in a video game are that was considered a Niche market of video games shows that they did any thing but fail.

You guys whine about all the bad thing about WoW and yet any other MMO that has tried to beat it has failed for much bigger flaws in the basic mechanics of the game. Cant solo play, No end game, Lack of races/classes, terrible combat, terrible graphics, most games that failed to WoW had one if not more of these problems with the game.

Again WoW didn't go wrong, you just didn't like where it went.

Originally posted by Punkre

You do realise that if WoW suddenly did burst and every one jumped ship that it would probably kill the MMO market all together, no one would be pushing for MMOs any more and the fact that WoW made signifigant growth in a video game are that was considered a Niche market of video games shows that they did any thing but fail.

 

You guys whine about all the bad thing about WoW and yet any other MMO that has tried to beat it has failed for much bigger flaws in the basic mechanics of the game. Cant solo play, No end game, Lack of races/classes, terrible combat, terrible graphics, most games that failed to WoW had one if not more of these problems with the game.

 

Again WoW didn't go wrong, you just didn't like where it went.

That's one guy who understood what I wrote above.

In fact every other of those MMO's launched in these past 4 years reinforced the global market position of Wow, simply by playing out the same strategies but with huge flaws.

The OP and others don't understand the difference between their own (very temporary and subjective) views with an objective market position.

If you didn't catch it by now (after 4 years), you'll never understand.

Just one absolute fact: Wow achieved this status by being the number one PC game sold in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. That's a build up of the complete mmorpg industry by ONE game. As long as the other players are playing the same strategies they do nothing but reinforce the winner.

Originally posted by BlackWatch

What WoW missed the boat on:

Open world PvP

Character customization

Additional Races

Additional Classes

............

 

Yeah wasn't BC supposed to bring in some additional classes? What happened there? Did the devs say "ah fuck it just give the opposing sides Pallys and Shammys and we'll grab a beer."

My pointless 2pence is that I loved the game, but just got bored. Had fun levelling to 80 in WOTLK (although it was far too easy) but then couldn't face the rep/pvp/raid treadmill.

Only reason I "hate" it is because my bastard RL friends refuse to play anything else while I'd love to try other MMO's with them.

Everyone is going to have a pretty different view of where WoW went wrong. I voted other so I will try to explain where it wrong for me.

1) WoW went wrong for me when they seperated the game from PvP/PvE. I don't like needing to have PvP and PvE gear. I think there should just be gear. It just feels like to me that it totally splits the game into two. Some people loved this change I'm sure, I just personally hated it.

2) WoW went wrong with WoTLK to me. It just didn't feel different enough from BC for me to keep playing. There was a lot of nice changes, but it just felt all the same. Another 10 levels to grind so you can raids/arena all over. It just didn't feel new to me at all. Most of the changes in WoTLK just felt like quality of life changes that could have been patched over time instead of new content (Not saying there wasn't new content, it just wasn't different enough to feel new to me).

I think I liked WoW more for what it could be instead of what it actually is. To me it seems like the Devs pidgeon hold themselves into a mold they created and must follow while developing content. Its all the same recycled ideas.

Every one is on the wow wagon.  I would just like to know, in a few simple sentences, what exactly makes this game so awesome?  Without mentioning the 11.5 million subs it has gathered.

Where did Warcraft go wrong?

Here are your answers, the real answers:

1. Honor and removing PvP ranks + dishonorable kills - By giving players points for killing stuff and gear you could by with those points, they effectively killed world PvP because the Battlegrounds where the most efficient way to accumulate Honor faster and buy gear faster. The PvP ranks they had before made you grind non-stop to achieve higher ranks, which was not good, instead of rewarding good players. Removing dishonorable kills, which lowered your honor and could contribute to de-ranking you, made griefing totally acceptable and forced many away from the PvP servers.

What they should have done- Tied the PvP ranking to actual player skill, like using Kill versus Death ratios kind of like LOTRO does. Also they could have objectives in Battlegrounds like capturing/stealing/recovering flags and such count towards your Rank, but K/D ratio would reign supreme for determining your PvP Rank. Instead, a linear system of accumulating points through repetitive actions is the very definition of a grind.

Killing lower level players that still "conned" green would give you less, but killing players grey (10 levels lower or more) would count against your K/D ration and thus rank. Remove high level griefing, give people reason to fight fairly.

*note* You'd have to come up with a system to reward healers for the amount they heal targets engaged in PvP minus overhealing.

Give experience for landing killing blows (or experience for % of damage done to a target or healing done to any ally) to prevent twinking and encourage PvP through the entire level range in the open world. High Rank does not = better gear, just different gear that looked cooler and give you e-peen Titles. Better for K/D ration to kill higher Rank players. Higher Rank allows access to more "flavor" items like banners and tabards and also "convenience" items like potions/bandages/regents.

Just some thoughts.. would have to flesh out details more to include things to encourage attacks on towns/cities.

2. Removing attunement quests for dungeons / raids - Neccessary step to prove a player is "ready" for the encounter and a PERFECT way to develope back story.

What they should have done - Change the quest chains for attunements to involve only solo-able quests instead of using dungeons and raids, and focus them more on the story and reasoning for going to that dungeon/raid. Why? Gives solo players more to do and gives them motivation to seek groups and enter the dungeon/raid once they are attuned. Also makes it so players who are a little behind or alts can "catch up" easier, without having to force guildies/friends to run them through obsolete content.

When they release new dungeons/raids, don't make the attunement tied to old dungeons/raids, make new solo-friendly quest lines to attune players to the new raids/dungeons. Same reasons, develope back story and create motivation for finding groups once you are attuned, also don't have to go back and help alts/newer players "catch up."

3. Using Tiers for new Raid content, and not dungeon content - Creates obsolete content and makes it near impossible for players to jump into the new tier without completing the old tier first.

What they should have done - Every new raid should have come with new dungeon(s). The new 5 person dungeons would be the same Tier of gear as the previous raid dungeon, and the new raid would require a minimum "gear check" of gear at the tier from the first raid / new dungeons.

Why? Gives small group non-raiders more options for progression, but still keeps the raiders as the "top" of the gear food chain. If content creation is an issue for Blizzard (lawl) they chould just up the Badges you get from Heroics to match the Tier level of the previous Raid. So when Ulduar is released you get Valor badges from Heroics now instead of Heroism, because Ulduar 10 gives Valor badges, and the 25 Ulduar gives new Conquest and thus the "best" gear. Next raid released, heroics move up to Conquest and new raid has new badges. etc.

 4. Death Knights starting at 55 - They had the perfect opportunity to revitalize the ENTIRE 1-70 content with WotLK, but instead they took the easy way out and made DK's start at 55 and thus made old-world even more obsolete.

What they should have done - Death Knights have new starting zones and 1-20 content just like they did with Blood Elves and Dranei. Why? Not everyone would have re-rolled one and thus creating FOTM DKs and "Death Noobs". Would have been a great opportunity to add additional content in the 20-70 range and/or change how quests/NPCs reacted to the Death Knights to keep things fresh.

They should have also included some kind of incentive for players to roll new alts that were NOT DKs, like making the "recruit a friend" program differently, so instead of new accounts and such you could link your alts to a friends alts and level together a bit faster too. Like if you created a new DK and wanted a friend to level with, they could create a new toon and you could link the two and level together with all the recruit a friend benefits.

5. Create Hierloom items a LONG time ago - Seriously why was this a new idea for WotLK?

What they should have done - Created Hierloom items back when TBC was released, and created more then just weapons/shoulders/trinkets. Like anybody with a character over level 55 who created a Blood Elf or Dranei when TBC released and they'd automatically come with a set of some hierloom gear that was bound to that toon and leveled up with them. When WotLK released same applied to DK alts of players with a toon at least level 65 (start with gear that leveled with them whole way) and same for any friend's alt you link a DK to.

BUT in doing this hierloom and recruit-a-friend-type thing they should have kept leveling rates 1-60 (70) the same as when the game released. It'd be like rediscovering the game all over again, you'd gain enough of a boost from the hierloom items and alt linking.

Just some thoughts...