I can't speak for a large number of people but recently, myself, my brother, my wife, my rl friend edward, and 4 of our guild memebrs quit wow, played the lotro demo ( for something to do) and will be playing war when it comes out.

Originally posted by Malvolentia

Originally posted by hebeventijd

Originally posted by Malvolentia

 

I'm not pulling that out of my butt.  If I'm lying why are they going to extreme in their RAF program?

Making leveling easier should apply to everyone in the game not just those willing to fork over cash.  They're just tuning the game into ways to milk money now.  Like Item mall games.

 

Let me ask you something ...:

Does it hurt? Those 10.9 million subs paying for Wow?

It's obvious why they are going to "extreme": They want even more. Wouldn't you ?

 

Well it's not fair to those 10.9 million who happen to be leveling alts.  Why aren't they receiving triple xp for forking over years worth of subscriptions? 

I think a few courses in business ethics might be needed here.

So you are avoiding the subject... what happened to your 12% decrease?  you know, the number you pulled from your butt.  A blizzard employee, who is under the watch of the Security and exchange commission stated they reached 11.9 million in May.. where is your proof they lost 12% of subscribers?

And as far as ethical business practices.   You never saw a phone company offer new customers a discounted rate on their first 3 months?  Wow, how unfair is that.. people who have been with them years are paying more than new customers???

This isn't about Blizzard losing customers.. this is simply about Blizzard wanting to give new players a chance to catch up to their friends before Wraith launches.  I mean think about it.  I want to invite a friend, would it work if I said " yeah, join this game, you'll never be able to adventure with me because you'll never catch up".  There are so many restrictions on this offer that the only people who DO get the exp boost are the ones who actually do help their friends adventure.  It also means that those new players are ready to buy the expansion!!   You don't get to 11 million subscribers without having a good business sense.

Also, Blizzard HAS made leveling easier for everyone in the game.  They removed elite/group quests from 1-60, they lowered the exp needed to gain levels from 30-60, they increased exp given from quests from 20-60 AND they lowered the level requirements for mounts from 40 to 30 (makes traveling much faster).  Blizzard has also stated that once Wraith launches, they are going to reduce the exp needed to level from 60-70.

Originally posted by Nekral

World of Warcraft is the most succefull game in MMORPG game ever. At the current state WOW has about 10,9 Subs world wide and with the WOTLK to become true in a few months the most propably is wow to increase its numbers.

Do you believe that smg could stop this in near future?

After the fail of AOC to decrease WOW numbers (except the first week of AOC launch that almost everybody was trying AOC) do you believe that others new MMORPG could decrease WOW subs.

Express your opinion with a vote

www.mmogchart.com/Chart11.html

No.  WoW's growth is leveling off, yes.  However, if they have a holiday release of Wrath, that will create a massive surge of new players.  Wrath-related growth will continue for at least six months after its release, at which time the game will probably return to its previous trend.

At the very earliest, WoW will suffer a monthly loss in total players in late '09.  It will almost definitely suffer one sometime in 2010, though that may not necessarily be the start of the game's decline.  More likely, it will simply mean a period of up and down swing before the actual decline begins.

Do you really care what we think?

I think WAR will do ok i.e. 500k to 1.5 million subs at the 12 month mark.

It wont put a massive dent in WoW though as I think most of it's subscribers will come from EU and USA where as WoW is strongest in Asia.

Maybe when you lump AoC, War, Aion, Jumpgate, Chronicles of the Spellborn, etc. all together you might see a downturn in WoW's active subs. But at the end of the day that number is what ever Blizzard says it is - we have no way of checking.

All I know is the servers in EU are a whole lot quieter now than they were in 2005 and 2006. I would have sworn their next statement after the 'breaking 10 mill' one would have been either keeping quiet or saying things have slackened off. There's no evidence of growth on the servers I play, only the opposite.

End of the day I've pre-ordered the WAR CE edition but I'm not done with WoW yet and will probably get WotLK as well. WAR wont be installed until I'm ready I only have time for 1 MMO at a time. I would have preferred WAR to come out in Spring '09 I would have been ready for it about then.

Originally posted by Garfunkel

All I know is the servers in EU are a whole lot quieter now than they were in 2005 and 2006. I would have sworn their next statement after the 'breaking 10 mill' one would have been either keeping quiet or saying things have slackened off. There's no evidence of growth on the servers I play, only the opposite.

I can't speak for 2005, but I play on an EU server, and day after day most of the mid level zones are empty except for a few level 70's passing through. I have played for hours at a time and never seen a single post in the General channels in many zones, and I do a /who for my level range and I am quite often the only one listed in the entire zone.

Originally posted by Phos

If I could vote (the 'vote' button never appears in these forums for me)

When that happens, hit the back button and then click on the thread again.  The vote button will appear.  It's apparently some kind of bug.

Originally posted by Kurush

Originally posted by Nekral

World of Warcraft is the most succefull game in MMORPG game ever. At the current state WOW has about 10,9 Subs world wide and with the WOTLK to become true in a few months the most propably is wow to increase its numbers.

Do you believe that smg could stop this in near future?

After the fail of AOC to decrease WOW numbers (except the first week of AOC launch that almost everybody was trying AOC) do you believe that others new MMORPG could decrease WOW subs.

Express your opinion with a vote

 

www.mmogchart.com/Chart11.html

No.  WoW's growth is leveling off, yes.  However, if they have a holiday release of Wrath, that will create a massive surge of new players.  Wrath-related growth will continue for at least six months after its release, at which time the game will probably return to its previous trend.

At the very earliest, WoW will suffer a monthly loss in total players in late '09.  It will almost definitely suffer one sometime in 2010, though that may not necessarily be the start of the game's decline.  More likely, it will simply mean a period of up and down swing before the actual decline begins.

One of the reasons for the drop off in growth (heh.. in growth, not subscriptions) is that we are at the very end of an expansion cycle.   Every game has this going on.  The 4 months leading up to an expansion are the worst times.. then there is a big spike at the expansion.

Blizzard really propogates this  themselves though by taking 2 years per expansion.  It is great for players because they add a ton of free content instead of focusing soley on expansions like UO and EQ did.  If they did an expansion every year, there wouldn't be nearly the flattening of the growth curve as we have now.

Warhammer is going to be interesting.  They are doing a lot of the same things wrong that Funcom did.  They still haven't lifted the NDA or started a large beta test.  The game is going to be released in a month and will have very minimal testing.    You know WotLK is going to be bug free, but are players going to play an unbalanced and buggy Warhammer insteada of getting their characters to 80 in WOW.

Originally posted by Azrile

Originally posted by Malvolentia


 

So you are avoiding the subject... what happened to your 12% decrease?  you know, the number you pulled from your butt.  A blizzard employee, who is under the watch of the Security and exchange commission stated they reached 11.9 million in May.. where is your proof they lost 12% of subscribers?

And as far as ethical business practices.   You never saw a phone company offer new customers a discounted rate on their first 3 months?  Wow, how unfair is that.. people who have been with them years are paying more than new customers???

This isn't about Blizzard losing customers.. this is simply about Blizzard wanting to give new players a chance to catch up to their friends before Wraith launches.  I mean think about it.  I want to invite a friend, would it work if I said " yeah, join this game, you'll never be able to adventure with me because you'll never catch up".  There are so many restrictions on this offer that the only people who DO get the exp boost are the ones who actually do help their friends adventure.  It also means that those new players are ready to buy the expansion!!   You don't get to 11 million subscribers without having a good business sense.

Also, Blizzard HAS made leveling easier for everyone in the game.  They removed elite/group quests from 1-60, they lowered the exp needed to gain levels from 30-60, they increased exp given from quests from 20-60 AND they lowered the level requirements for mounts from 40 to 30 (makes traveling much faster).  Blizzard has also stated that once Wraith launches, they are going to reduce the exp needed to level from 60-70.

You can find that their sales are down at the beginning of the year.  They didn't release an expansion like they did the previous year.  It's just natural that would happen.

I'm done with WOW.  I have been, but I still like to keep up with it and have considered going back to it from time to time. I'm glad I quit when I did.  They're selling levels for cash now in the form of new customers.  This is going to be exploited and help to ruin the game.  It's the first time I ever saw the integrity of this game breached.

By making leveling easier ONLY for a select few that hand them cash they're going to rope a few instant subscriptions, but the overall game is being damaged now.

Going to the extreme of handing out levels is a pretty good indicator that the game is beginning to sink.

Originally posted by Kurush

 

www.mmogchart.com/Chart11.html

No.  WoW's growth is leveling off, yes.  However, if they have a holiday release of Wrath, that will create a massive surge of new players.  Wrath-related growth will continue for at least six months after its release, at which time the game will probably return to its previous trend.

At the very earliest, WoW will suffer a monthly loss in total players in late '09.  It will almost definitely suffer one sometime in 2010, though that may not necessarily be the start of the game's decline.  More likely, it will simply mean a period of up and down swing before the actual decline begins.

I think it will take a hit after WAR launches.

It'll recover with WotLK, but nearly as much as it did with BC, and for a shorter amount of time.

I think it will take either a historical loss or gain once the ARM tsunami crashes in on the economy, which appears it will. WoW/MMOs could be the new monopoly :/

Originally posted by Malvolentia

You can find that their sales are down at the beginning of the year.  They didn't release an expansion like they did the previous year.  It's just natural that would happen.

I'm done with WOW.  I have been, but I still like to keep up with it and have considered going back to it from time to time. I'm glad I quit when I did.  They're selling levels for cash now in the form of new customers.  This is going to be exploited and help to ruin the game.  It's the first time I ever saw the integrity of this game breached.

By making leveling easier ONLY for a select few that hand them cash they're going to rope a few instant subscriptions, but the overall game is being damaged now.

Going to the extreme of handing out levels is a pretty good indicator that the game is beginning to sink.

Man, you must be wanting to go back pretty bad when you use such elborate reasons to justify your WoW abstinence.

Blizzard will still claim WoW has 10 million players. It's what they do.

Originally posted by SonofSeth

Originally posted by Malvolentia

 I'm glad I quit when I did.  They're selling levels for cash now in the form of new customers.  This is going to be exploited and help to ruin the game.  It's the first time I ever saw the integrity of this game breached.

By making leveling easier ONLY for a select few that hand them cash they're going to rope a few instant subscriptions, but the overall game is being damaged now.

Going to the extreme of handing out levels is a pretty good indicator that the game is beginning to sink.

Man, you must be wanting to go back pretty bad when you use such elborate reasons to justify your WoW abstinence.

The reasons aren't elaborate, they're actually pretty simple. Its the description of the how and why that is elaborate, but you kind of run that hazard whenever you choose to participate in a discussion.

He thinks that the quality of the game has taken damage since they offered levels for cash.

I contend that they have been offering levels, characters, this and that for cash since a long time ago and that is actually when the quality deteriorated. I remember reading about Scillia and Ghost Lands, among many others, where players were forced to plop down 25 bucks in order to move to a playable server.

WoW is popular, has been popular, won't argue that for now. However the quality has been in a steep decline.

Edit:
--------------
The Asian markets for WoW, especially Russia will help prop up the subs for a long time. 
--------------

LoL

 

i would say there will be significant drop in the numbers playing the month war is out . thats not to say subs will drop that month because people will proberbly play both . if warhammers any good it will definatly take a chunk of wows subscriber base in subsequent months . people are bored with wow but if you want a good fun /easy access mmo its really the only one on the market at the moment that caters for that audiance . thats not to say games like lord of the rings , eve and city of heroes dont have something to offer but their niche gameplay is never going to be as popular as wow .theres bound to be some kind of revival with the liche king coming out . i personally fully intend to return to warcraft at some point but because of the likes of warhammer and age of conan etc i wont be rushing back

It will be nice to have some solid competition.  Monopolies are never good, they get lazy and start getting complacent.  When Intel was the only main chip maker before AMD got competitive, they held back technology and slowly released it.  It's the same kind of thing with any monopoly, if there is no competition, just sit back and cruise.  Consumers will benefit from a more competitive environment. WOTLK is already introducing a new  PvP zone.  Why did they take 4 years to do it?

As it stands I feel as though wow is probably one of the best games when it comes to PvE and raids. They have so many flaws pvp wise starting with the lack of character balance and being a gear dependant game.  I also seen the youtube video with the siege tank and if this is what blizzard is bringing to the table with PvP then you guys can have it.

Originally posted by synn

As it stands I feel as though wow is probably one of the best games when it comes to PvE and raids. They have so many flaws pvp wise starting with the lack of character balance and being a gear dependant game.  I also seen the youtube video with the siege tank and if this is what blizzard is bringing to the table with PvP then you guys can have it.

Arena shows every class can shine in one configuration or another.

Would you care to do arena in Conan :)))

Originally posted by Malvolentia

Originally posted by Azrile

Originally posted by Malvolentia


 

So you are avoiding the subject... what happened to your 12% decrease?  you know, the number you pulled from your butt.  A blizzard employee, who is under the watch of the Security and exchange commission stated they reached 11.9 million in May.. where is your proof they lost 12% of subscribers?

And as far as ethical business practices.   You never saw a phone company offer new customers a discounted rate on their first 3 months?  Wow, how unfair is that.. people who have been with them years are paying more than new customers???

This isn't about Blizzard losing customers.. this is simply about Blizzard wanting to give new players a chance to catch up to their friends before Wraith launches.  I mean think about it.  I want to invite a friend, would it work if I said " yeah, join this game, you'll never be able to adventure with me because you'll never catch up".  There are so many restrictions on this offer that the only people who DO get the exp boost are the ones who actually do help their friends adventure.  It also means that those new players are ready to buy the expansion!!   You don't get to 11 million subscribers without having a good business sense.

Also, Blizzard HAS made leveling easier for everyone in the game.  They removed elite/group quests from 1-60, they lowered the exp needed to gain levels from 30-60, they increased exp given from quests from 20-60 AND they lowered the level requirements for mounts from 40 to 30 (makes traveling much faster).  Blizzard has also stated that once Wraith launches, they are going to reduce the exp needed to level from 60-70.

 

You can find that their sales are down at the beginning of the year.  They didn't release an expansion like they did the previous year.  It's just natural that would happen.

I'm done with WOW.  I have been, but I still like to keep up with it and have considered going back to it from time to time. I'm glad I quit when I did.  They're selling levels for cash now in the form of new customers.  This is going to be exploited and help to ruin the game.  It's the first time I ever saw the integrity of this game breached.

By making leveling easier ONLY for a select few that hand them cash they're going to rope a few instant subscriptions, but the overall game is being damaged now.

Going to the extreme of handing out levels is a pretty good indicator that the game is beginning to sink.

Again, you are completely wrong with this ' buying levels' thing.

1.  The new players and the old player ONLY get the bonus to their experience while questing together. 
2.  The old player can't do this on his main.  If I have a lvl 65 character, I can't go adventuring with a lvl 3 character and get any exp at all.  The only thing I get from this is faster leveling on a new character.
3.  ALL exp bonuses end at lvl 60, which is only about half the amount of time it takes to level a character to 70  ( 1-60 time = 60-70 time)

Now lets see what they did for ALL character to make leveling easier
1.  Decreased the exp needed to level from 20-60
2.  Increased the amount of experience given by quests from 30-60
3.  Removed all Elite Mobs and group quests from 1-60
4. Improved quest rewards from 1-60
5. Mounts only require lvl 30 now, used to be 40

The 'buying levels thing only does the following
1.  If I get a friend to play,  I can create a new alt that will level fast (but only when we quest together)
2.  I can create ANOTHER alt which gets to level fast also, but will always be behind the new players character.
3.  I get a cool Zebra mount.
4.  With luck,  My friend will now have enough time to get to lvl 70 bfore the expansion hits.

None of the leveling things effect main characters or high level characters.  It's not like I can get 5 people to play WOW and suddenly my character goes from 65 to 70, or that he levels faster going 60-70.

BTW.. you still haven't shown where WOW subscriptions dropped by 14%.   All 3 versions of WOW continue to be on the top 10 in PC game sales and haven't budge from those charts ever.