There are those who like WOLTK, those who feel it fell short, but regardless most would concur that people are driving through the content pretty fast.

Does Blizzard think this expansion is going to keep folks busy for another 2 years?  Or do they need WOLTK to keep folks busy just until they start leaking word of their new MMO, the top secret MMORPG?

They unofficially stated they will be releasing an expansion each year from now on.

Just because that is the only content they released with WotLK doesn't mean they won't be releasing more. They are going to be releasing another raid dungeon sometime around the end of this month. There is no set date on it as far as I know.

Well so far it's looking pretty good, if they take their usual route they will release upgrades at regular intervals. Yes they have made things easier, some people do not like htis, some do so what the hell.

Personally I think Blizzard have not put a foot wrong so far, they have prodcued one thing that a lot of other games have failed to deliver, a playable, fun game and have continued to implement thigns that attract players.

Regardless of peoples opinion, Blizzards bank account speaks for itself, one of the most commercially succesful game franchises ever produced, with all the spinoffs (books, card game, figures... steins etc) Blizz must be laughing at all the nay sayers.

As much as I  hate to say it. Blizzard could fully support WoW for the next 10 years with the Xpac every two year model they are running now.

Hell they could give players a graphics revamp 2-3 years down the road and people would never leave.

some say MMOs have a five year life span before they hit rock bottom and have only the hardcore of hardcore fanbois playing the game keeping it on life support. Imo WoW will probably take 15 years to hit that point.

Originally posted by Trianon

Well so far it's looking pretty good, if they take their usual route they will release upgrades at regular intervals. Yes they have made things easier, some people do not like htis, some do so what the hell.

Personally I think Blizzard have not put a foot wrong so far, they have prodcued one thing that a lot of other games have failed to deliver, a playable, fun game and have continued to implement thigns that attract players.

Regardless of peoples opinion, Blizzards bank account speaks for itself, one of the most commercially succesful game franchises ever produced, with all the spinoffs (books, card game, figures... steins etc) Blizz must be laughing at all the nay sayers.

I don't play WoW anymore, quit back in June, so not really the best person to speak on the subject of WoW but gonna go ahead and throw my 2 cents in.

Even though people are going through the content  pretty fast I don't see droves of people leaving WoW. As far as PvE games go I think WoW has a pretty fair lock on PvE for the forseeable future. They will lose some people and gain some, just like they have been doing for years and years. The only reason I no longer play the game is because I am more of a PvP player and wasn't satisified with the way PvP ended up. Which brings me to why I quoted Trianon, the only misstep I see that Blizz did was include BGs and Arena's effectively killing world Pvp in the game. Other than that I pretty much agree with Trianon on every point.

The way WoW is going I don't doubt that subs will hit the 20 million mark in the future, they certainly are making enough money to put out updates and expansions as often as they feel necessary. Hell I even toyed with the idea of going back just to blow through the new content for sh!ts and giggles.

Originally posted by Trianon

Well so far it's looking pretty good, if they take their usual route they will release upgrades at regular intervals. Yes they have made things easier, some people do not like htis, some do so what the hell.

Personally I think Blizzard have not put a foot wrong so far, they have prodcued one thing that a lot of other games have failed to deliver, a playable, fun game and have continued to implement thigns that attract players.

Regardless of peoples opinion, Blizzards bank account speaks for itself, one of the most commercially succesful game franchises ever produced, with all the spinoffs (books, card game, figures... steins etc) Blizz must be laughing at all the nay sayers.

 Well can't argue the bank account part. However all good things do come to a end. Not gonna get into the wow killer arguements, just saying for some people a expansion evey 2 years is fine, for other its just not even close to enough. I think we can all agree though that unoffical statements (as someone earlier bought up) are worth a pileo... of well you know. Blizzars expansions have always been pretty slim on actualy well you know expanding. After 4 years we've got 25 lvls of one new class. (not a whole class per say as 25 level take alot less work then say 80) and 2 races that actually had 99% of thier graphics in at launch. (how hard is it really to change the skin color and hair on a night elf to poof chang it to a blood elf?) I don't see Blizzard putting out a yearly expansion unless they cut the content in half ie you could get 1 new race thats had its graphics in since launch, or 12-13 levels of a new class and a 5 lvl raise to the level cap but you'd still pay full expansion price. (On second thought Blizzzard could really rake in the dough there, giving even less but charging the same every year.)

  Don't get me wrong, Blizzard IS smart. They don't rock the boat, if its not broke don't fix it, in other words they do as little as possible to the game itself (which has proven successfull why mess with success? Hell the some of the fans complain when the level cap is raised which is about the min a expansion should do) and still charge full prices for their expansions. Yes Blizzard is laughing all the way to the bank

Originally posted by metalhead980

 

As much as I  hate to say it. Blizzard could fully support WoW for the next 10 years with the Xpac every two year model they are running now.

Hell they could give players a graphics revamp 2-3 years down the road and people would never leave.

 

some say MMOs have a five year life span before they hit rock bottom and have only the hardcore of hardcore fanbois playing the game keeping it on life support. Imo WoW will probably take 15 years to hit that point.

  I think people still play Diablo 1, so i have no problem believing WoW (as long as blizzard can still make a profit) will be around in some form for the next 10 years even if they never do a graphics update. (Who really argues that WoW's great because of its graphics?)

 The servers are paid for by now (several times over), so as long as they don't have to replace anything (small reinvestment for upkeep) almost all of the subscription is pure profit minus a small amount for CSR, and continued advertisement. Add a 1% reinvestment for new expansions, and maybe 2% reinvestment into their new secret MMO, and Blizzard is a profit dream machine come true. 

Iam just speculating here, but i do believe that this will be the last ex-pack for WoW. Iam sure people have already heard that they are working on a next gen MMO which is supposidly a brand new IP (that should be interesting)

Iam sure they will continue to add content through patches like raids (Icecrown, Ulduar) and zones (Maelstrom, Undermine). But to see a full blown ex-pack with something along the lines of the Emerald Deam or going face to face with Sargeras and his lackeys in the Twisting Nether, the two expansions fans thought would culminate the lvl 100 experiece, is highly unlikely. 

Dont think blizz would have its brand new product go up against its own established one, especially when WoW has such a big share of the MMO market. 

I could be wrong though. i did read somewhere that they were considering a single account for all games model. That is, pay one monthly sub for all your online content with Blizz (last time i checked blizz didnt confirm the new Battle.net for Diablo 3 was free). If they did go this way they could afford to support both, their new MMO and WoW for atleast another two ex-packs.

End of speculation 

Originally posted by pileopoop

They unofficially stated they will be releasing an expansion each year from now on.

that's Blizzards hope - and something they said when BC launched in Jan 2007

pc.ign.com/articles/755/755650p2.html

We want to try and release an expansion every year though and the next one should be somewhere in the beginning of 2008.

but WOTLK took more than 1 year after BC,  or specifically  20 months later

time will tell...

Originally posted by Obzerver

last time i checked blizz didnt confirm the new Battle.net for Diablo 3 was free

www.joystiq.com/2008/10/13/blizzcon-2008-rob-pardo-talks-battle-net-monetizing/

We're definitely not looking at turning Diablo into a subscription based game. It's clearly not an MMO, so it's not appropriate to do a business model like that. The way we approach all of our games now, is we come up with what we think is a great game, and then we wrap the appropriate business model around it. If that's just a box price, then that's that.

With Battle.Net we're definitely looking at possible different features that we might be able to do for additional money. We're not talking about Hellgate or anything like that. We're not going to tack things on.

I think World of Warcraft is a great example to look at. We charge people if they want to switch servers or if they want name changes, things that aren't core to the game experience, they're really just optional things that some people want. It takes us some development work to do it, so it makes sense to charge for it. We would never do something like say to get the full game experience, you'll have to pay extra.

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by Obzerver

last time i checked blizz didnt confirm the new Battle.net for Diablo 3 was free

www.joystiq.com/2008/10/13/blizzcon-2008-rob-pardo-talks-battle-net-monetizing/

We're definitely not looking at turning Diablo into a subscription based game. It's clearly not an MMO, so it's not appropriate to do a business model like that. The way we approach all of our games now, is we come up with what we think is a great game, and then we wrap the appropriate business model around it. If that's just a box price, then that's that.

With Battle.Net we're definitely looking at possible different features that we might be able to do for additional money. We're not talking about Hellgate or anything like that. We're not going to tack things on.

I think World of Warcraft is a great example to look at. We charge people if they want to switch servers or if they want name changes, things that aren't core to the game experience, they're really just optional things that some people want. It takes us some development work to do it, so it makes sense to charge for it. We would never do something like say to get the full game experience, you'll have to pay extra.

 

 Well thats good news. Battle.net was one of the best free online services imo. Though even if they would charge a sub to play online, i would end up paying it. I love Diablo too much 

I think that people tend to have a short-sided look at what WoTLK offers.  If you look at just what the expansion added to the original game and the first expansion, then yes people can get thru that content pretty quickly especially when they already have a decked out level 70 toon.  But if you look at the game as a whole from start to finish, there's plenty of content to keep someone busy for a very long time, 2 years easy.  People tend to forget that many people are just now becoming WoW fans.  I would venture that over 50% of the paying subscribers have not played for more than a year's time.  I know several people who played for a while, quit and have now come back to the game since the new expansion is released.  They'll play till they are bored with the game again, maybe 6 months or a year and then they'll quit till the next expansion and they'll be back again.

Bottom line is the expansion alone doesn't have to keep you busy for 2 years as long as the sum total of the content can keep you busy for 2 years.  I've started a Death Knight and I'm just now getting to Northrend.  I have 7 more level 70 toons.  Do you know how long it will take me to get all those toons to level 80.  Add to that I have to get all the professions to max etc, etc, etc.  And I still have 2 toons that have only made it into their 30's.  I doubt I would be able to accomplish all that and get those 2 toons to 80 as well in 2 years.  Now I realize that most people aren't like me, but there's enough of us to keep Blizzard happy for 2 more years.

Originally posted by pencilrick

There are those who like WOLTK, those who feel it fell short, but regardless most would concur that people are driving through the content pretty fast.

Does Blizzard think this expansion is going to keep folks busy for another 2 years?  Or do they need WOLTK to keep folks busy just until they start leaking word of their new MMO, the top secret MMORPG?

There are more dungeons to be added before then so Id say ya. I know it will keep me going since I dont rush thru content. I take my time and enjoy it.  Those who race to the end are only short changing themselves in the long run. 

I think the time between BC and Wrath was probably about 4 months too long (out of 20 months).   I think an expansion every 12 months is too fast, but 16 months is certainly fine.

WOW is very different from most games.  It probably has the highest percentage of very casual (time-wise) players.  It also is the only game that is still selling a TON of 'vanilla' boxes, which means a TON of it's players are still in the 1-60 zones.

The median lvl for my server for 71-80  is still only 77.    People are still talking about where the very dedicated people are, not the average player.

Originally posted by pileopoop

They unofficially stated they will be releasing an expansion each year from now on.

Man, I would so take that bet...in a heartbeat.

Originally posted by pileopoop

They unofficially stated they will be releasing an expansion each year from now on.

Actually, they went back on that statement and admitted that was a mistake to say on their part. Even a month ago, they said not to expect a release every year.

Originally posted by ZDPhoenix

Originally posted by pileopoop

They unofficially stated they will be releasing an expansion each year from now on.

 

Actually, they went back on that statement and admitted that was a mistake to say on their part. Even a month ago, they said not to expect a release every year.

Actually I believe what was said is that to be able to have a release every year they would have to cut back on the amount of content in the expansion.  Does anybody want an expansion every year with less content?  I don't think anyone wants that, including Blizzard.

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by ZDPhoenix

Originally posted by pileopoop

They unofficially stated they will be releasing an expansion each year from now on.

 

Actually, they went back on that statement and admitted that was a mistake to say on their part. Even a month ago, they said not to expect a release every year.

 

Actually I believe what was said is that to be able to have a release every year they would have to cut back on the amount of content in the expansion.  Does anybody want an expansion every year with less content?  I don't think anyone wants that, including Blizzard.

I would like it if they did rolling content updates.  A few instances and quests/factions each expansion would be nice.  I mean right now at the moment there are literally two factions that do NOTHING on alliance side, and I'm sure horde have the same thing.  Imagine a new instance or two being discovered.  Another Hall opens up (to go with Lightning and Stone), the Keep expands, the Explorer's league finally opens something up in the basin that spills out a royal mess, etc.  A few new instances every month, even sub-80 (with heroic versions for 80) along with a new area and some new quests would go a long way towards making patches a lot more fun.  Add in some MGT style 'heroic' instances, and I'll be very happy.  

Originally posted by metalhead980

 

As much as I  hate to say it. Blizzard could fully support WoW for the next 10 years with the Xpac every two year model they are running now.

Hell they could give players a graphics revamp 2-3 years down the road and people would never leave.

 

some say MMOs have a five year life span before they hit rock bottom and have only the hardcore of hardcore fanbois playing the game keeping it on life support. Imo WoW will probably take 15 years to hit that point.

The longlivety of MMOs is based on what other MMOs are doing.  When it comes to WOW - other MMO companies are falling way short atm.  The new games of 2008 were flop considering what they claimed they were gonna be doing. 

As far as WOW beeing a hit for 10 more years... No - it will not.  WOTLK is showing every sign of what all MMOs end up doing. Reusing the same content over and over and over again.   And its much easier to create WOW 2 than improve the graphics engine ...

With all this said - there is no doubt that WOW is the best MMO out there atm.  Its not based on grapichal quality - It is based on the gameplay.  Thats where the new MMOs fall short.  THey fail the basic systems and the gameplay is put in second place over graphix and lag (wich is inevatable when it comes to mass PVP). 

MMOS should always be based on top quality PVE content.  There is no doubt that WOW has huge advance in this field atm.  Mostly because the rivals are going for something that most normal ppl are not intrested in.  PPL playing MMOs want to come online - chat with ppl and work with them towards comon goal.  And they want to log off after nights work feeling the have progresed their character and had fun..  Im sorry but PVP is build around 50% of ppl loosing.  And its calling for anti- social behaviour that in the end will make normal ppl simply quit.