2 Nadia

Yep. But before, they had enough confidence in their customers that they didnt need to provide you with free trials (you had to pay for BC to try out new race and their starting zone too, you had to pay for Cata to try out new race and their starting zone too). Now they are offering a free trial - which means they are no longer confident people will buy their product just because its WoW and Blizzard.

Which is my point - Blizzard reputation is ruined with their fiddling with WoW, making it non-epic, homogenised and boring piece of crap, and with their huge Diablo 3 fiasco, dead game, huge problems on start (cant play singleplayer lol), massive scams on RMAH (scams by BLIZZARD who stole the money from players), linux users banned etc etc.

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by IstrebiteI
Giving part of content of expansion to those who didnt buy it? Sounds like desperation move to get subs :)

no one can visit Pandaria unless they own the expansion

no one can make a monk unless they own the expansion

no one can make a panda until Sept 25, when MOP launches

players w no MOP, who want pandas, will have access to starting area Mystic Isles - but not pandaria

 

This is unprecidented when it comes to Blizzard, apparently they are losing confidence that they can hold the top slot in the market or they wouldn't be doing things like this. Before EVERYTHING needed to be bought or you couldn't do it. They even kept the expensive transfer fee (which really requires some guy with a thumb drive to ride an elevator down to the servers to transfer your character from one usb to another oooh aah). When they make those prices lower it will be the death knell i'm sure.

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Originally posted by Mephster

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Originally posted by Badaboom Another desperate attempt to retain subscribers in the face of blizzard's biggest competition yet in GW2. I think fans of WoW should actually thank Anet.  Question to everyone, "Do you think Blizz would have done this if Anet was not coming out with GW2?"

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Nine million plus and desperate, lol the irony.

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And 15 full servers from the 128 they have, all the other servers in Europe are empty lol.
I bet Blizzard is realy happy with those asian players who pay 1 cent per hour so thay can count them up as full subscriptions rofl.

But hey try to talk to a blinded WoW fanboy lulz

I posted this is a different thread, but it still applies:

Would WoW have offered this feature if GW2 didn't exist? My guess is no, since it forces people to buy the expansion. Maybe 6 months to a year after the expansion they might have opened it up but certainly not when the expansion releases.

Pretty obvious to me it is a retention tactic to staunch the flow of bleeding subs that will be lost to Anet's financial model of buy to play.

I'm not saying that Blizz will not be successful in their new expansion. Just that revenue potential is what is being fought for.

I agree Blizzard has to step up their game to compete

I agree this the first time Blizzard has made a new race immediatly accessible w launch

but Blizzard had been slowing giving access to older expansion races, without needing expansions

i think if Blizzard was really concerned about GW2 they would make Monks and DKs free

Originally posted by IstrebiteI

2 Nadia

Yep. But before, they had enough confidence in their customers that they didnt need to provide you with free trials (you had to pay for BC to try out new race and their starting zone too, you had to pay for Cata to try out new race and their starting zone too). Now they are offering a free trial - which means they are no longer confident people will buy their product just because its WoW and Blizzard.

Which is my point - Blizzard reputation is ruined with their fiddling with WoW, making it non-epic, homogenised and boring piece of crap, and with their huge Diablo 3 fiasco, dead game, huge problems on start (cant play singleplayer lol), massive scams on RMAH (scams by BLIZZARD who stole the money from players), linux users banned etc etc.

Or maybe (in our now ftp mmo world) they just decided to roll it out that way. Opinion are like assholes. Everyone has one.

If you ask me, the whole expansion need to be 'free', not just the Pandas.

Like it should be the case. Unlike giving the 180$ by one year for like... 10 days of content on yearly basis.

Bottom line: WoW is far from 'free' from subscriber angle, no matter what would one lead ou to believe. Not counting trials of course.

Originally posted by Kost

Originally posted by Badaboom

Another desperate attempt to retain subscribers in the face of blizzard's biggest competition yet in GW2.

I think fans of WoW should actually thank Anet.  Question to everyone, "Do you think Blizz would have done this if Anet was not coming out with GW2?"

When your game still retains over 9 million subscribers after an eight year reign, which is about 800% more subscribers than any MMORPG that has ever existed, the last word I would ever use to describe the company is desperate.

GW2 is going to be amazing, I'm a massive fan, but grasping at straws just to try and make the competition appear to be something they are not is little more than a thinly veiled form of spite.

Wake up.

I agree with what this guys says.  Cant we all just get along? why must be try and tout our game of choice as the only choice?

Originally posted by Mothanos

 

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Originally posted by Mephster

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Originally posted by Badaboom Another desperate attempt to retain subscribers in the face of blizzard's biggest competition yet in GW2. I think fans of WoW should actually thank Anet.  Question to everyone, "Do you think Blizz would have done this if Anet was not coming out with GW2?"

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Nine million plus and desperate, lol the irony.

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And 15 full servers from the 128 they have, all the other servers in Europe are empty lol.
I bet Blizzard is realy happy with those asian players who pay 1 cent per hour so thay can count them up as full subscriptions rofl.

But hey try to talk to a blinded WoW fanboy lulz

9 million + after eight years of live service, yep, someone is blinded alright....you need a reality check pal.

But hey, try to talk some sense into a jaded hater, lulz.

More onto "GW2" thing...

  Desperate or not... Blizzard felt competition once again and it is a fact. Why is this time a bit tougher than before? Lets face it, WoW is getting old now and like someone before said, they are not fighting now for new customers, but only to retain playerbase. Its just not 2005 anymore.

  Wil they lose one ammount of subscribers due to GW2? Hard to tell at this time really, only time will tell, but neither WoW nor GW2 players should worry about this. Competition is always a good thing to us. Competition is exactly the reason why we get more and more content "accessible" in WoW, so why to be worried even a bit?? Only good things can come out of this.

Originally posted by Kost

Originally posted by Badaboom

Another desperate attempt to retain subscribers in the face of blizzard's biggest competition yet in GW2.

I think fans of WoW should actually thank Anet.  Question to everyone, "Do you think Blizz would have done this if Anet was not coming out with GW2?"

When your game still retains over 9 million subscribers after an eight year reign, which is about 800% more subscribers than any MMORPG that has ever existed, the last word I would ever use to describe the company is desperate.

GW2 is going to be amazing, I'm a massive fan, but grasping at straws just to try and make the competition appear to be something they are not is little more than a thinly veiled form of spite.

Wake up.

Really good post, Kost.

Blizzard is just trying to soften the fact that in GW2 you can play all the races and play all the professions (regardless of race choice) at start.  They had to do something to offset that a little.  

I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make all races available to all factions in a coming patch or expansion.  Yeah it throws lore all out the window, but it will happen because the players want it.  Blizzard will probably sell it to the gamers as either refugees or traitors.  If the players will accept a kung-fu panda expansion, they'll accept anything. 

Originally posted by Mothanos

 

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Originally posted by Mephster

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Originally posted by Badaboom Another desperate attempt to retain subscribers in the face of blizzard's biggest competition yet in GW2. I think fans of WoW should actually thank Anet.  Question to everyone, "Do you think Blizz would have done this if Anet was not coming out with GW2?"

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Nine million plus and desperate, lol the irony.

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And 15 full servers from the 128 they have, all the other servers in Europe are empty lol.
I bet Blizzard is realy happy with those asian players who pay 1 cent per hour so thay can count them up as full subscriptions rofl.

But hey try to talk to a blinded WoW fanboy lulz

Is there any truth to that?  I mean, that a good number of their subs are the pay-as-you-go Chinese players?  If that's true, they shouldn't brag about such a huge "filler" playerbase, after all how much money would they be really making?  Besides, a lot of those are probably gold sellers.

I'm not saying WoW is not successful, but what if the Chinese decided to stop playing?  They'd lose that 9 million they're touting, but they wouldn't lose much money.

Originally posted by Kost

Originally posted by Badaboom

Another desperate attempt to retain subscribers in the face of blizzard's biggest competition yet in GW2.

I think fans of WoW should actually thank Anet.  Question to everyone, "Do you think Blizz would have done this if Anet was not coming out with GW2?"

When your game still retains over 9 million subscribers after an eight year reign, which is about 800% more subscribers than any MMORPG that has ever existed, the last word I would ever use to describe the company is desperate.

GW2 is going to be amazing, I'm a massive fan, but grasping at straws just to try and make the competition appear to be something they are not is little more than a thinly veiled form of spite.

Wake up.

We could use that "Wake up" the other way around, too. And in fact, the "Wake up Blizzard" is far more appropriate than ever in this case.

Now if people could just stop raising the colossal numbers of subs as an immortality card on Blizzard, that would elevate the debate. Because let's be real for a second : 

Do you really think those billions of dollars from "9 millions subs" are used to buy them pancakes ... ?

Don't you think they're reinvesting them in other vital projects ? Hence the desperate need to sustain such a high score ?

Especially when WoW costs roughly 40 millions per year to maintain and produce expansions/updates ?

Especially when their new MMO, Titan, is their only hope to renew their supremacy ? 

Especially since it's been in production for ages ?

Especially since 60% of their mothership, aka Vivendi, is starting to talk about abandonning them ?

People are far too easily impressed by big numbers, really. For me it would be more like "Wake up Blizzard, you've been dominating the mmo market for 6 years, but I've yet to see you take some risks with your last 3 expansions. You reap what you sow."

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by Valua

Lotro was also a bigger threat than GW2. The films were amazing, made so much money and brought a whole new audience to Middle Earth. This game was even critically acclaimed by both players and critis. And the graphics are still probably the best in the MMO genre.

Your entire post was wishful thinking, but this bit made me go "WTF?"

I played the game.  No they aren't.

As for the OP, that's great news for WoW players and a smart decision on Blizz's part.

In your opinion you mean, yeah? Or is your opinion fact? I said probably.

Well I guess graphics come down to opinion, people think WoW/GW2 have very bad graphics, I think they're very stylised and both have great graphics in general.

But I do think Lotro has the most realistic graphics currently, no other MMO even comes close to how realistic and breath taking they are. The character animations are a bit off, but the scenery is beyond amazing. 

The next closest for graphics would probably be Age of Conan, but even that's way off.

Again, this is my opinion, and that is your opinion.

I think it's stupid to go around and say "I played the game. No they aren't" without giving any valid reasons, and stating it as fact. "I played the game. It was bad" do you not see how stupid this sounds? Without valid reasons your statement is pathetic.

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by Valua

Actually there biggest competition to date was Swtor. It has two massive, well known, well loved companies behind it, and it had the biggest budget in the video game industry of all time. It was practically a Star Wars MMO catered to the WoW fanbase.

Vanguard was also considered a bigger threat than GW2. It was announced not long after WoW was released, and it was released around the same time as Burning Crusade. Many called it the new EverQuest and was probably the most hyped MMO of all time. It has Sony behind it and massive names in the MMO industry.

Vanguard was never meant to be a WOW threat  - its targeted audience was EQ Classic players

 

post by Aradune

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/showthread.php?p=424297

Does our core gamer = WoW's casual gamer? I don't have their internal data, obviously, but I doubt it. Our core gamer is someone who plays 2-4 hours every night, occasionally spending a full day or so raiding, but who is normally focussed on challenging group oriented gameplay. The casual and raid gamer will indeed have content for them, but the core gamer is our focus. So also is creating a more challenging and longer term game -- a home.

I do know the average EQ player earlier on (launch->Velious) and it is their playstyle and time commitment whom we are targeting primarily. Those who raided full time were about 6-10% of the player base.

 

 

 

EverQuest lot most of it's players when WoW was released. In other words they moved to WoW.

So even though they denied they were targeting WoW's gamer base, they actually were, as WoW was made up largely by EverQuest players.

Sigil was good to not publically announce going against WoW though, because like every other company that announces this, and every company that will announce this, they will fail to do so.

WoW will continue to be the "King of the Hill" for at least another good few years, theres no denying that.

I think we'll see WoW down to 3 million subs by 2015, and even then it'll still be the largest subMMO in the world.

Looks like as usual Blizzard are damned if they do and damned if they dont, if Blizzard stick to the same they did with the previous expansions, ie locking a new race to the purchase of an expansion they are shouted at for being greedy or what ever.. then Blizzard change it up and give access to the new race with or without the expansion and they are yet again criticised... I think this is more a reflection of the increasing poisonous MMORPG community than anything else.

Something I don't say often, but it sounds like a smart move on their part.

I don't see it hurting MOP sales, because that carrot is 5 levels of content and new raids.

I don't think Blizzard has to be worried about any other game.  They have more people playing than all other MMOs combined.  They could lose 90% of thier current subscriptions and still be in the category of what most developers would call "successful" (that'd be around 1 million).  This doesn't even include the number of players who are just playing the trial, which there is alot.  If you ever notice at level 20 if you use the dungeon finder, it's almost instant for anything, even dps sometimes.

This doesn't mean that Blizzard doesn't mind losing subscriptions, they'll do whatever they can to keep thier players.  Players do equal money.  I think alot of people that play WoW don't even know of other games.  They don't keep track of games like GW2 or anything else.  They're born on WoW and will always stick with WoW.  Most probably don't even know about MMORPG.com or other sites. That's why there's so much WoW hate on this site (from users, not Bill and the gang hehe).

Edit: And please could people stop crying "Kung Fu Panda" this and "Kung Fu Panda" that.  The Pandaren were in Warcraft lore loooooong before Kung Fu Panda was even thought of.