the game released 2 weeks ago

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/leviathan-warships

its not my type of game but the trailer was great

Originally posted by doodphace

Ya, but these guys haven't even been a top 5 guild since 2009 lol

the quitting includes Vodka too -- a #3 guild

http://dbdguildh.guildlaunch.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9319927

Originally posted by Xiaoki

So, losing 1.3 million subscribers(mostly from China) is a loss of around $10 million in revenue.

until Blizzard quantifies what the current China vs non China split is    (WOW was last stated to be 55% Asian)

the "mostly from China"statement is meaningless

could have 5.5 million Asian and 4.5 million nonAsian totaling the old 10 million

all regions lose 10%

and China would still have the most losses because they have most subs

if China makes a difference for distinction of sub loss,

then Blizzard has been withholding sub information

-- because Blizzard has not published NonAsian sub breakdowns for over 5 years

Originally posted by furbans
Who gives a rats ass bout some guild?  Never heard of em, don't care, and they are a dime a dozen.  Ridiculous how people think that some "hardcore" guild is some prestige status.  That's like a coke addict gloating he sucked dick for coke.

top guilds can make a difference -- i know Fire of Heaven had SOE's ear pre WOW

The Rehabilitation of Blizzard’s Alex “Furor” Afrasiabi

http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/the-rehabilitation-of-blizzards-alex-furor-afrasiabi/#1d756

Originally posted by doodphace

And that was their last. They havent even been top 5 since Tier 9 (2009, WoW is now on Tier 15), and was as low as 29 on one of the tiers inbetween. Not sure why they are considered the "top guild" on this thread lol

4 months ago, Exodus was supposedly still recognized in the Top 10 of Worlds best raid guilds

http://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/174cz4/exodus_world_9th_and_vodka_world_3rd_cease_to/

but they reformed into Evodus

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1254557-lt-vodka-gt-and-lt-Exodus-gt-merge-to-form-lt-Evodus-gt-in-Mal-ganis

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Never heard of them

ive heard of them due to their world firsts in downing raid targets

http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/25/exodus-scores-world-first-heroic-alone-in-the-darkness/

Originally posted by Arakazi

However, we shouldn't look at it through rose tinted glasses. It was a gem of a game for it time, but the corpse runs and the death trains and the crafting was horrible.

the corpse runs and deathtrains i have fond memories of -- I think those challenges enhanced the game

but i agree w you -- they were a turn off to many players

EQ crafting did suck

Will Wright, SimCity, and DRM

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/05/will-wright-simcity-and-drm/275710/

Will Wright: Games "falling way short" as a medium

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-04-will-wright-games-falling-way-short-as-a-medium

When the discussion turned to the launch of Sim City Online, Wright was quick to declare his first thought. "I feel bad for the team," Wright said. Beyond that, Wright had some definite opinions about the launch. "I could have predicted - I kind of did predict there'd be a big backlash about the DRM stuff. It's a good game; I enjoy playing it a lot." Still, Wright understands the audience response. "It was kind of like, 'EA is the evil empire, there was a lot of 'Let's bash EA over it,'" Wright said.

"That was basically inexcusable, that you charge somebody $60 for a game and they can't play it. I can understand the outrage. If I was a consumer buying the game and that happened to me, I'd feel the same."

Originally posted by kreken

About two weeks ago I reactivated my account since early Cata and started a monk; really enjoyed him up to level 80. Once I got to Hyjal, I couldn't even force myself to finish one quest and logged off. I got on my 85 pally and started leveling him. I will most likely do sporadic leveling of my monk so I would be using just rested xp to get to 85.

i did something similar a month ago

I got my monk as far as 75 and stopped playing because I did not want to experience Cata again

EQ also had a richer class interdependence

In EQ - classes were not restricted to  tank, healer, dps

EQ had utility classes like Enchanters and Bards

whos primary role was utility - not dps    (buffing / debuffing / crowd control)

I also liked EQs group size of 6  (in WOW its 5)

a restriction that EQ had (that i liked)

you could only load 8 active skills at once

you could swap them anytime if you sat down

there were no maps to rely upon (altho those were added later w the LOY expansion)

Vanguard

Horizons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istaria:_Chronicles_of_the_Gifted

The core concepts behind Horizons before release were as follows: to create a zoneless,^[7] constantly changing environment in which players would cooperate to hold back a seemingly unstoppable enemy: the Withered Aegis.^[8][9] This enemy would consist of a few individuals from the Living Races (races that the Players belong to) in an unholy alliance with groups of Devils and Demons from another existence called the Realm of Blight. The twisted Blighted magic would include necromancy, the ability to create zombies from corpses and even reanimate skeletal remains into fierce warriors. Due to the co-op nature of the game The Aegis would be entirely AI controlled.^[10] According to David Bowman in 2002, "Horizons will not ship with player versus player conflict. Rather Artifact has chosen to put its full attention to making the player versus environment gameplay the best it can be."^[11]

This enemy was originally supposed to be dynamic in nature,^[12] launching automatic attacks on player held positions and blighting (capturing) the ground with its evil magic. This proved to be difficult to implement properly in practice, and the battlefront was eventually scaled back into static regions of Player and Blight held areas. However, in the years after Horizons launched "World Events" would be held that would allow players to make a permanent mark on the world. While not as cost effective to maintain as an automated system, this allowed Artifact, and Tulga, to keep their promise of a changing, interactive world.^[13]

Originally posted by winter

Originally posted by AIMonster

I think EQ2 is one of the best examples of it done right.  Not only can you downlevel to a player (I forget what they call it) and still earn rewards, but you can also temporarily set your level down to whatever you feel like to redo content in the game.  In EQ2 we were able to play with a group of people and never feel like we had to stop leveling or stop doing things on our own.

 Nope, I played EQ2 and AoC at launch neither had it at launch. CoH if i remember correctly did have it at luanch.

EQ2 did not have it at launch,

but EQ2 added the downscaling feature 5 months later in Feb 2005

Originally posted by silvermember
Before a lot of people make random comments about the reason it is losing subs, just remember most of the lost subs came from the east.

thats meaningless info

5 years ago,  Blizzard claimed WOW had a 55%  Asia  45% US/EU split

http://wow.joystiq.com/2008/01/22/world-of-warcraft-hits-10-million-subscribers/

if both regions lost proportionate subs

-- you could still claim Asia lost more (because Asia has the most subs)

Originally posted by fariah033
I only have one word to say " DAILIES "

i hate dailies too

as others have said, WOW is still doing great when compared to any other mmo

but Blizzard took a 17% drop since their October 2012 claim of 10 million

 if Activision is to be believed from the BBC article, 

subs are expected to fall lower next financial quarter too

Originally posted by lizardbones

I couldn't play the 80 to 85 content in Cataclysm, so you've done better than I did. 

Oh well. At least I have the experience of what it was like to play through it when it released. :-)

I got through the 80 to 85 content - once,  2 years ago

I have no interest in ever doing it again,  it wasnt fun

prior to Cata, I had 80s of every class because I enjoyed leveling in WOW

regardless,  WOW is still fun to many players -- but I don't enjoy PostCata WOW

Originally posted by Quirhid
Isn't WoD on ice?

last i saw - its years away

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/06/world-of-darkness-years-away-from-launch/

Originally posted by Axehilt

If they happen to be soloable after outgearing them, go for it.

But don't waste time specifically making them soloable, because that's time you could spend on features everyone plays, instead of only a tiny handful of players.

agree

some games have solo versions of heroic dungeons  (like EQ2)

but i dont see the need to spend dev time on a solo version of a raid

especially when the raid story serves no purpose after you have done it once

Originally posted by mizrolist

You could buy an Annual Pass until 30 April 2012 - so there were active subs with Annual Pass for only one month in that 8.3 million. The last ones expired 10 days ago.

I agree and that still makes a difference

but i think the majority of annual pass subs signed up within the first 2 months of the offer  (Oct and Nov)

Originally posted by Mothanos

Thing with WoW is, they will never let us know how big the EU/USA market is, or how big their 5 cent per hour asia market is.

Blizzard used to give breakdowns each year -- but stopped doing that in 2008

all we know is the figure Blizzard gave 5 years ago,  Asia is 55% of their sub base

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Imperator101

http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Zones_By_Level

 

How does EQ2 have more content? WoW has more Zones and Dungeons/Raid instances.

EQ2 has player made content. And the world is much bigger. I have played both to endgame and EQ2 definitely has more content.

you can also downscale your level in EQ2

--  a feature that is lacking in both WOW and LOTRO