It makes sense to me.  Mythic drops classes and capitols and is thus able to get WAR shipped a number of months early, avoiding a WAR and wotlk release near the same time.

Smartest thing they could of done.  They will get tired WoW players and the AoC drops.  As oppose to posting a Dec 2008 release date and having blizz offer a open wotlk, or SCII open beta at the same time, if not a released product.

In part yes.

But there are many other factors involved as well

I think Blizz is perfectly happy releasing Wotlk after WAR. People are more likely to stick to their last try and they probably know there'll be people who try out WAR yet will still give Wotlk a look.

Those people would probably sooner stick to WAR if they tried WOTLK first and then WAR but the other way around...

I see no reason why  Blizz would've wanted to release before WAR.

Oh, I don't think blizz is in any danger.  Mythic just needs high release sales to stay in the game.  High release sales = increased stock prices = happy investors/parent company.

If  WAR and wotlk came out at the same time I think everyone would agree WAR would lose prospective sales to blizzard.  By WAR coming out first and blizzard not stating a wotlk release day yet, players that are waiting for wotlk will be very prone to picking up WAR and giving it a try to pass the time.  If players stay with WAR or not doesn't really matter.  If release sales are high enough, Mythic will be given the okay to start work on the first expansion pack.

Originally posted by Bent

It makes sense to me.  Mythic drops classes and capitols and is thus able to get WAR shipped a number of months early, avoiding a WAR and wotlk release near the same time.

Smartest thing they could of done.  They will get tired WoW players and the AoC drops.  As oppose to posting a Dec 2008 release date and having blizz offer a open wotlk, or SCII open beta at the same time, if not a released product.

WotLK is already in open beta, there just not gonna let all 10 million players in at once or even at all.

dude WotLK is gonna beat WAR no matter how much earlier they release it. i do wanna play WAR but i doubt its gonna be the "WoW killer" itll be up there with WoW, but it wont dominate it like most ppl are thinking

Originally posted by hXcFecal

dude WotLK is gonna beat WAR no matter how much earlier they release it. i do wanna play WAR but i doubt its gonna be the "WoW killer" itll be up there with WoW, but it wont dominate it like most ppl are thinking

I don't think anyone here thinks it will kill WoW. It will grab a nice size number of PvP fans and a good amount of people new too mmos. 2million tops but that will still be very good,

Originally posted by Bent

It makes sense to me.  Mythic drops classes and capitols and is thus able to get WAR shipped a number of months early, avoiding a WAR and wotlk release near the same time.

Smartest thing they could of done.  They will get tired WoW players and the AoC drops.  As oppose to posting a Dec 2008 release date and having blizz offer a open wotlk, or SCII open beta at the same time, if not a released product.

I think you are most likely correct.This same thing back in the EQ2/WOW releases.Eq2 said they could meet a early release and it scared Blizzard so much that they released WOW like 2 weeks later ,even though it wasn't quite ready,by there own standards.Both SOE and Blizzard wanted pre  christmas releases.Also remeber that kids will be going back to school soon,so they need to get those bored at home kids buying them up before they go back and won't have the time.

WAR subscriptions won't matter until a year or so after release.  Mythic has enough backing to easily get them through one year game upkeep.  What matters is, what kind of press release they will be able to put out within three months of release.  If they can say they sold 500k units within 3month, they are golden until the first expansion comes out, regardless of whether 1/3 of those players return to WoW for WotLK. 

Investors/parent company EA will see 500k units sold and see that funds are available to get an expansion pack developed.  If only 150k units sold the first 3mo, an xpac would be long in waiting.

I personally  expect 250k+ box sales within a month of release and that number building to 500k+ within six months.  It really depends on how stable the launch is.  If launch is very stable and playable I could see 500K units sold within 3 months and bridging 750k within a year.

DAoC never had over 1mil subs as I am aware, and alot of the DAoC players are now older and have families that took them away from MMOs.  I don't expect more than 1/3 of past DAoC players to make it to WAR.  Maybe more if Mythic offers some returning customer deal.

Originally posted by Bent

I personally  expect 250k+ box sales within a month of release and that number building to 500k+ within six months.  It really depends on how stable the launch is.  If launch is very stable and playable I could see 500K units sold within 3 months and bridging 750k within a year.

Your being funny right? AoC had 3 times that during the first month and they only had 1/2 the beta applications that Warhammer has. 250k box sale is a joke :)

My guess is 1 mil box sale during first month.

Like many others I also believe War is being released in september to not have to face off directly against wotlk. It would be a marketing disaster if they did, most people would rather stick with what they know than try something new. They already said in an interview that they could have gone to EA and asked for more funds and they would have given it to them.

Originally posted by Bent

Oh, I don't think blizz is in any danger.  Mythic just needs high release sales to stay in the game.  High release sales = increased stock prices = happy investors/parent company.

If  WAR and wotlk came out at the same time I think everyone would agree WAR would lose prospective sales to blizzard.  By WAR coming out first and blizzard not stating a wotlk release day yet, players that are waiting for wotlk will be very prone to picking up WAR and giving it a try to pass the time.  If players stay with WAR or not doesn't really matter.  If release sales are high enough, Mythic will be given the okay to start work on the first expansion pack.

The target customers of War and WoW are different.

War = full PvP/RvR oriented game

WoW = PvE/raiding oriented game with some instanced PvP flavor

Of course many people will try both, but in the end if you are a true PvP/RvR fan you will stick with War, if you are a raider you will play WoW.

For the sale numbers: 1.25 million upto 1.5 million in the first month. After all, even AoC with half the features sold 750k.

Quite possible but I really do think that it has alot to do with EA pressure to release and Mythic possibly running out of funds to support further content at this time.  

I predict WotLK will fail if it costs $50 while WAR a full game would also cost $50...am I right?

Originally posted by Magter

I predict WotLK will fail if it costs $50 while WAR a full game would also cost $50...am I right?

not how the industry works, WotLK could be $60 and still sell millions easy.

Originally posted by Magter

I predict WotLK will fail if it costs $50 while WAR a full game would also cost $50...am I right?

blizzard is the only company to get away with 40$ expansions

I think both will do fine. World of Warcraft is too rooted to be so easily toppled by another game this early, less known games are still up and kicking after all.

For sure Warhammer will take a decent chunk of WoW's playerbase, mostly people looking for something new, but it will hardly overshadow WotLK because that expansion has a lot of things that will make current wow players giggle with joy.

Originally posted by Myrdek

Originally posted by Bent

I personally  expect 250k+ box sales within a month of release and that number building to 500k+ within six months.  It really depends on how stable the launch is.  If launch is very stable and playable I could see 500K units sold within 3 months and bridging 750k within a year.

 

Your being funny right? AoC had 3 times that during the first month and they only had 1/2 the beta applications that Warhammer has. 250k box sale is a joke :)

My guess is 1 mil box sale during first month.

 

Like many others I also believe War is being released in september to not have to face off directly against wotlk. It would be a marketing disaster if they did, most people would rather stick with what they know than try something new. They already said in an interview that they could have gone to EA and asked for more funds and they would have given it to them.

AoC had both larger beta sign ups and beta invites than WAR.

I expect 400K sales, 200K subs retained.  Mythic has one month to get ready for launch.  They talk about being feature complete but once NDA is dropped we can talk more about what did and did not make the feature list.

Originally posted by Solude

Originally posted by Myrdek

Originally posted by Bent

I personally  expect 250k+ box sales within a month of release and that number building to 500k+ within six months.  It really depends on how stable the launch is.  If launch is very stable and playable I could see 500K units sold within 3 months and bridging 750k within a year.

 

Your being funny right? AoC had 3 times that during the first month and they only had 1/2 the beta applications that Warhammer has. 250k box sale is a joke :)

My guess is 1 mil box sale during first month.

 

Like many others I also believe War is being released in september to not have to face off directly against wotlk. It would be a marketing disaster if they did, most people would rather stick with what they know than try something new. They already said in an interview that they could have gone to EA and asked for more funds and they would have given it to them.

 

AoC had both larger beta sign ups and beta invites than WAR.

I expect 400K sales, 200K subs retained.  Mythic has one month to get ready for launch.  They talk about being feature complete but once NDA is dropped we can talk more about what did and did not make the feature list.

dude those numbers are way to low.

First off what your saying is tha half the people who signed up for beta will not play.

Further you suspect 1/4th of beta players will still play.

This game has the most hype hands don, not even generated by them, but by the players,

Im honestly suspecting 1mil within a month, retain 800,000 and if good, will go up from there.

At the begining of 2009 we'll know how "good" the game is... since by then we'll have the first "filtered" subscription numbers...

But also i have my suspicions that there will be some problems... Mark said they still want 3 things implemented before the NDA drops... i guess one was the graphics engine improvement we heard about recently... one is the (can't say, nda)... but IMHO it's bad this is still not in yet... but then again it's more or less simple to implement... and the thrid, i have no idea :o)

But when i hear from gamespy that one of the mastery tree skills isn't even ingame yet... 1 month before launch... that DOES make me worried... again... skills are not hard to implement but then again, aoc concentrated on dance emotes instead of fixing game breaking bugs...

Let's just wait till the NDA drops before any guesses...

And as to why they release early... only mythic knows

Originally posted by Myrdek

Originally posted by Bent

I personally  expect 250k+ box sales within a month of release and that number building to 500k+ within six months.  It really depends on how stable the launch is.  If launch is very stable and playable I could see 500K units sold within 3 months and bridging 750k within a year.

 

Your being funny right? AoC had 3 times that during the first month and they only had 1/2 the beta applications that Warhammer has. 250k box sale is a joke :)

My guess is 1 mil box sale during first month.

 

Like many others I also believe War is being released in september to not have to face off directly against wotlk. It would be a marketing disaster if they did, most people would rather stick with what they know than try something new. They already said in an interview that they could have gone to EA and asked for more funds and they would have given it to them.

They sold out of over 150,000 COLLECTOR'S EDITIONS. I'd be shocked if Warhammer wasn't at over 1 million boxes after 1 month.