http://www.gamershell.com/companies/blizzard_entertainment/188228.html

Just thought this was interesting.  WoW set a record at the time for video game sales... and had a whopping 200,000 accounts created the first day, with a record breaking 100,000 people online at the same time.

We've come a long way, haven't we?

Yup ... yet still people are trying to tell us that the genre is either "dead" or "in need of saving" :)

Brings up the fast food vs fine dining argument.

you must remember that was usa only launch, and eu was month latter

Originally posted by Ausare

Brings up the fast food vs fine dining argument.

Sometimes you just need a cheeseburger, something your fancy restaurants just can't provide.

Originally posted by Smikis

you must remember that was usa only launch, and eu was month latter

Good point.

I don't believe any game will ever reach the subs WoW had it's peak.  I think the genre has changed too much, and there are too many good options out there now.  It's just funny that even a "failed" launch like Aion had nearly twice the numbers.

Originally posted by Ausare

Brings up the fast food vs fine dining argument.

fine dining sucks. its always so awkward sitting there wearing the appropriate attire,  serving sizes that wouldnt please a toddler and in the end

you pay an insane amount for very little satisfaction in the meal.  people will tell you its all about the ambience but you can get better by grilling a steak in your own backyard

sry, i suck with analogies

I remember lots of "loot Lag" and "rubberbanding" at wow launch. Not long after gigantic ques and server crashes followed.  I wanted to say something about the people saying there isn't enough end game content. But Wow launched with NO raids and NO BGS. Shorly after launch Molten Core was added and then WSG. They built on it from there, so to those people I would say just give it a couple months after launch. Even if you rush to max lvl there seems to be a good reason to make alts beyond having another class at your disposal.

Originally posted by NMStudio

Originally posted by Smikis

you must remember that was usa only launch, and eu was month latter

Good point.

I don't believe any game will ever reach the subs WoW had it's peak.  I think the genre has changed too much, and there are too many good options out there now.  It's just funny that even a "failed" launch like Aion had nearly twice the numbers.

i stil remember me loling at people who got rid of their wow accs thinking aion would be the wow killer. Seriously? I love the game but still.

I miss those days TBH.

Wow's launch was great, and sucky at the same time.  They didn't expect that many people, so lag and queues were bad.  I remember getting stuck in that looting position forever.  But man, it was fun as hell.  While there were no actual raids, there was technically end game content.  I believe the at launch 10-man Startholme and Scholomance were the end-game.  Molten Core came maybe 2-3 months later?  All pvp was open world and just for the hell of it.  No rewards other the satisfaction of preventing some dude from doing his quest.

Originally posted by VooDoo_Papa

Originally posted by Ausare

Brings up the fast food vs fine dining argument.

fine dining sucks. its always so awkward sitting there wearing the appropriate attire,  serving sizes that wouldnt please a toddler and in the end

you pay an insane amount for very little satisfaction in the meal.  people will tell you its all about the ambience but you can get better by grilling a steak in your own backyard

 

sry, i suck with analogies

And if you are wearing the wrong kind of shoes they wont even let you in.

I only grill at home in a suit and tie.

Originally posted by Afterlife

I only grill at home in a suit and tie.

lol

Originally posted by Worstluck

While there were no actual raids, there was technically end game content.  I believe the at launch 10-man Startholme and Scholomance were the end-game.

Can you imagine the predictable "get the torches and pitchforks" reaction if any new game tried that now?  Or left that little harvesting bug unfixed for almost six months?  Or had the same continuous server instability crashes?

Shrug, the unique circumstances of that launch will never happen again.  But if Vanilla WoW launched today, it couldn't possibly match its own records.  Given the 7-years-more-jaded toxicity of the audience, they would be even less forgiving of any and all flaws, and the Behemoth's only hope would lie in a purely Oriental market.

Also rather difficult to sell five million NA subs against a F2P market.

I had loot lag and in Dun Morogh the lag was horrendoes, where stuff wouldnt register for a couple minutes. And that was the main reason why i leveled human and night elf sides. I never had queue problems but there was this one server i played in that would ALWAYS crash and rollback at a specfic time. After people figured this out some folks would try to rush and get parties to do things before the crash or head to Ogrimmar to duel and naked dance so the rollback wouldnt affect anything.

Good times.

Originally posted by NMStudio

Originally posted by Ausare

Brings up the fast food vs fine dining argument.

Sometimes you just need a cheeseburger, something your fancy restaurants just can't provide.

You guys don't go out much?

Go to Tapas in Sacramento, and try their Tapa Burger, will beat any fast food cheese burger.

Originally posted by VooDoo_Papa

Originally posted by Ausare

Brings up the fast food vs fine dining argument.

fine dining sucks. its always so awkward sitting there wearing the appropriate attire,  serving sizes that wouldnt please a toddler and in the end

you pay an insane amount for very little satisfaction in the meal.  people will tell you its all about the ambience but you can get better by grilling a steak in your own backyard

 

sry, i suck with analogies

/facepalm

It all depends where you go, places like Bizzarro in Seattle or a hole in the wall like J-K's in San Diego, from great italian food to greek greek. It's never the same for everyone.

Its funny how so many people think of WoW as a smooth launch.  It wasnt even the smoothest launch of the month it released.  but then SoE would have LOVED to have WoWs issues (too many people)