I agree preordering any game has a risk. Thats why I buy all my MMOs at the store now.

Yes War will survive because its alot of fun to play. The sub numbers are increasing right now. Yes it had 750k and yes it went down to 250k or so. But now sub numbers are above 300k (thats increeasing by the way). Russia and Korea launch could easily add another 50k-100k  plus players and alot of people will resub because of the new expansion. So War should be fine. If  War wants to go over the 1 million mark it will have to get a contract with China. China is the bulk of the MMO market. Oh and and War only laid people off because EA needed to lay people off. The economy is bad and everyone is cutting back. But its not because of game performance.

I like to play healer because I notice I win alot more scenarios and rvr sieges when i am healing. I know how to play other toons well to but i definetly have more of a positive impact on the game when I am healing. The only time I dont have a positve effect is when I am in a group of 10 and we have 7 healers (too little dps). But thats doesn't happen very often.

Can this game have a boat load of subscribers. Yes because it is being launched in Asia right off the bat. The US market is insignificant compared to the asian market. China has over 1 billion people. If China likes the game the rest of the world can hate it and you will still make millions.

Please dont say things that are not true. warhammer did not fail. It has 300k subs and increasing (Russia, Korea etc, expansion ext). Can EQ compete with Wow. Everquest was a good game but it cannot compete with Wow. Wow is too strong. Plus to beat Wow you must create a game that entices the US, Europe, China, Japan and Korea etc. If the game is not translated into multiple languages you will not even come close to Wow.

T1 and T2 are always heavily populated. T3 is the zone you have to worry about. People lvl very quickly from lvl 25 to 30 to get to T4 quickly. So T3 sometimes doesn't have alot of people. But as soon as you hit lvl 31 your fine again because T4 has a very healthy population.

Warhammer is alot of fun to play and with the free expansion coming out its only going to get better.

Even if they have 150k subs. That is a healthy number. Lotro is doing fine and it has an estimated 50k to 80k population. IMO age of conans flaw is the lvl cap. Lvl 80 is fine but  not to start, I think you have to ease people into it. Other than that content is solid, graphics are excellent and it has a healthy population. So as long as it can keep over 100k and keep overhead low it will make money and thats why they made the game.

War Hammer's numbers are increasing. The initial Wow exodus has subsided. They have now increased to above 300k . Warhammers numbers are increasing more right now do to the russia launch. War also has a major contract with Korea. On top of that the buddy key system has brought alot of new recruits to war.  The new free trial system that is going to be implemented will also help. Wow did not grow immensly until its 10 day trial was implemented. And finally alot of people have been resubing to War because of the new expansion pack coming out over the next few months. Also war numbers will not go over 1 million until it is translated into multiple languages (Chinese korean and Japanese are huge). If Wow was only in English it would not have more than 2.5 million.  8 million plus wow players are not in the United States.

I play on phoenix throne and Vortex. Both servers are doing well and populations are actually increasing. Example I placed 50-80th out of 85 in december on a keep sieges ( I am a healer). Now on keep sieges I place 60-90 out of 150. thats 70 more players average per keep siege. I use to only see one or two open groups in a zone. Now I see 5-10 alot of times and some of them are not groups but warbands. in november 20 servers were low now only one server is low.  So population is growing.

Awesome

Waaaaaaaagggghhhhhh!

Introducing the slayer and choppa is a great idea. Going to be alot of get to the choppa jokes though =).

My question is what arch type is a slayer because it is different from a choppa in that a choppa has more armor. It seems to be a melee, low armor and  high dps. Are they counterparts to each other or are they counter parts to other destro and order toons?

White lions are good and squig herders are good. But white lions have "Fetch". Which totally rules. You see a healer or caster in back who is really hurting your group send your lion to fetch them and throw them into your group. Where you then proceed to beating the crap out of. Fetch rules =).

Studies have shown that as the economy gets worse, video games are actually played more. One example used in the article was you don't have money to see a movie so you stay home and play video games more often. People also play video games to take there mind of the real world. So in an unstabble economy people will play more. This economy will not hurt Wow. The only thing that could decimate Wow is a nuclear war in China and Japan. That would decimate 8 million of Wow player base. Other than that Wow numbers should continue to climb.

Alot of people don't really care about player housing. Not that its not cool. But they have to cater to the larger crowd and player housing isn't it at least not at this time.

Very nice. Mythic continues to improve a game that is already very fun to play.

I have lvl 30 + (T4 toons) and am still having fun. I just think mythic needs to add more PVE content(more dungeons and quests), not because I like PVE but to draw more individuals to the game. More people would make the games PVP even more epic than it already is.

4 out of 8 of the recruit a friend passes that I gave out have signed up. I know alot more people who want to give this game a try so i am sure at least some of them will sign up when i get more passes later this week. If everyone recruits, if Mythic can beef up T4, and they consolidate servers then the population should increase with in the next few months. I just wish they did the recruit a friend program sooner.

Hmmm... thats will be an interesting shift in Wow (WOTLK) if PVP gear becomes more powerful than PVE gear because it was not the case in BC. 

I quit wow because I found its pvp to be very boring. They treat pvpers in Wow like second class citizens. If you pvp in Wow you get welfare epics. Thx saying my gear is ghetto really makes a pvp player feel good. And I for one hate to do dungeons. Wow dungeons are good but I don't like to do dungeons. I just like to pvp all day and War fits the bill.