f13.net

Traipsing around GameSpots of late, I learned two interesting things about BC:

    * Expected on-shelf date was November 28th. This means I was right. I love being right.
    * Blizzard is only planning to ship 4 million units of Burning Crusade boxes.

4 millions units seems real low to me though. The only reasons I could come up with:

   1. They really expect only 60% of the current account holders to buy it, based on precedent (though there aren't many games to compare to, and none which hit such a wide spectrum of playstyles).
   2. They are not planning to launch the expansion in EU, China nor other territories until next year.
   3. They are planning to be out of stock in order to gain positive PR from that.

All three are plausible, though I'd bank most heavily on #2.

I firmly believe that they could hit 10 million subscribers with this expansion, as they draw back so many other players to complement those already here. But if #2 is the reason for the lowball distribution, then it may take some time for that 10 million to be reached.

What do you think?

Anyone know if they are planning an online download?

Perhaps they mean to reduce strain on their servers by holding manufacture back?  25-man raids are supposedly better on latency, but the crush of people making their way through the dark portal and the opening zones could create some spectacular lag.

Out of those 3 options I find 2 the least likely. Even though WoW was released earlier in the US, it was made pretty clear that at least EU would get the same content as the US at pretty much the same time. I do believe this hold true for other territories as well, even though I have no memory of any information regarding that. It was a huge concern with DAoC that all the content would pretty much already have been explored once it hit EU.

if they delay the release in europe again I'm not buying it
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Yeah, right. I'm weak :(

Digital download is the preferred distribution method in Korea and I believe China as well. I think you guys are reading too much into that number.

I think I'll buy 5 and ebay them for my personal christmas gift.

Bunch of fucking lemmings, MMOG gamers are.

Edit: I still need to dump my copy of Subsistence I picked up. The Ebay auctions for it are becoming more scarce. I should probably sell my LTD edition WoW launch box also.

Edit 2: Doesn't look like there's a burning crusade special edition. Missed opportunity maybe?

That one shocked the hell outta me. And I see on Amazon the original special editions go for like $300. People love the panda pet.

I don't really understand why they are not doing a collector's edition.

Because they want to sell the regular copy first. Somebody pointed out to them that if you release the collector's edition a month later, you make two sales to the same punter. Once the collector's edition is sold out, you release a stripped down special edition that has yet more unique content for a triple sale to many, and double to a lot of folks who missed the collector's edition. Then, just for a laugh, you release the hundred or so collectors editions you held back through auction sites, fully signed by the team.

Also, the answer is numbers 2, 3 and 4. Number 4 is logistics - that because of inevitable last minute crap (the sort thats hard to patch in, like box art) they need to hold back printing long enough that it actually will become problematic to ship more units in a reasonable timescale without involving other printing companies. However, this plays nicely into the "selling better than anticipated, we had to get more printed" press fondling.

Yeah, a direct download sale in China & Korea makes sense (and makes the box sales number make sense as well, which is nice).

I wonder when the inevitable 'Battle Chest' edition of WoW+TBC will be released? Personally, I'd schedule it for release in the same week that Vanguard goes live (Sometime in March 07?), but that's me being petty and vindictive.

That would be ironic considering the number of patches Brad and his team put in EQ just before other games released that fixed or added things players had asked for for years in EQ.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that TBC won't be released in Asia until early 2007.

The current FAQ states:

Auto Assault in the woods? I really don't think Blizzard considers Vanguard any sort of competition. They're probably more worried about UO graphics upgrade.

Internet porn and YTMND are bigger threats.

Since we are on the topic of WoW prices, I wanted to throw out a little info I got recently. It could be wrong, but this is what I have heard.

Wow Subs in the USA are 1 million. Wow subs in China are 6 mill and another 700k-1mil in Europe. In China you do NOT have to buy the box. Its a free download. You only have to pay hourly to play. The hourly price in china is about 1.5 cents. The avarage monthly payment of a Chinese player is $1.
I found this interesting cause people always drop the numbers ($15 a month + $50 innitial box sale x 6 million = money hats) now, im not saying they dont have money hats. We all know they do, but the overall income is much less than I had imagined.

WoW got another article in the New York Times today. (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/technology/05wow.html)  They were talking to Blizzard's president and it says:

Almost seven million globally.
More than three million in China.
Slightly less than two million in the U.S.
More than a million in Europe.

I guess the rest of the world brings it up to seven million.

/irony on
Could it be an evil plan to prevent their servers crashing on opening day? Have they no respect for MMORPG traditions?
/irony off

I think a couple of million BE paladins and Alliance Shaman running round the newbie zones on opening day will likely do the server in. So we can probably discount:

4) Matching box sales to server capacity

Hence the 'petty an vindictive' part - Vanguard is going to be mediocre at best so you're right in that Blizzard doesn't need to do anything.

That makes no sense.  You tie your original game to your expansion, so what good does a collector's edition released later do? 

I love my collector's edition but only because of the pets.  If there were no pets, I would not have bought one.

Wish I could get a mini Onyxia.  Or a mini Orc or Tauren. Horde could get pet Gnomes or mini NEs.

I love my Murky. Specially when he dances.

Well, the NYT article notes that they are on pace to make over $1b in revenues this year, which I assume is the ballpark of most people's guesses (my guess was in that ballpark, and everyone always agrees with me amirite?).  No idea how much of that is profit, of course.

It's not a guess.

A more salient point would be nobody knows how much of that income is going into Vivendi's coffers, and how much actually makes it back to Blizzard.

I find this hard to believe.  You delay sales - that is financial hit in and of itself (<insert opportunity cost calculations here>).  What is the incremental gain here in terms of marketing - WoW is popular?  It's well liked?  It's doing better than other MMORPGs?  Sales are robust?

All of those things are currently true.  I would love to see the argument by Blizz management team to their parent compay - that is public (correct?) - that they plan to delay sales to try and push a positive marketing image that is already quite strong.

I'm getting worried, a little.  Right before ToA launched, I was at the apex of my DAOC love affair.  After all, SI was wonderful in my opinion, it was just a terrific expansion, and I thought Mythic had done way more things right than wrong.  So I had huge, high hopes for ToA.  (And we all know how that turned out. At least, for me.  I hated Trials of Atlantis - everything about from the ideas of it to the implementation of it to the bugs of it to... well, I pretty much quit playing.)

I am getting excited about BC.  I am very happy with Blizzard and the changes they've done to the game, and just how much better it is - in my opinion - now than at launch, and how my expectations have pretty much been met or exceeded in most areas.

I'm worried because I don't want my hopes dashed.

www.worldofwarcraft.com

Click the link that says general forums. That can pretty much dash any hope you have in any thing.

If I read the forums, I'm sure I'd be a lot unhappier with the game than I am.

The caverns of time will be a cool thing to explore - revisiting old battles.

In terms of the future - Blizz has said that while BC will break PVP into grind vs. talent pursuits, one or the other, eventually, beyond BC, they plan to have outcomes from pvp impact world events in pve.

These guys have a vision.  And they can execute.

All they need now - is a calender :P

yeah, the new PvP point calculation system alone is going to completely change the way the PvP "grind" functions.  Now you will no longer have to slave away for 12 hour days, 7 days a week to get High Warlord type gear on a compedative server, you just bank honour points till you can afford it.  All it means is that the people who PvP super often will get more gear first, but eventually, it is concievable that EVERYONE will be running around with a High Warlord type weapon, or so it seems.  Not sure how that will effect things.

Probably in much the same way that everyone running around in T1-3 is now.

I provisionally like the idea.  It gives two equal(ish) ways to get nice purples - kill lots of big mobs or lots of players.

One of the nice things about WoW battleground PvP is that you don’t need to kill lots of players to get a good PvP ranking. You just need to have a hand in killing lots of players. This basically rewards devotion to PvP as much as individual skill. And as Damion Schubert was arguing at AGC, rewarding devotion seems to be a key to a successful MMORPG. 

As someone who’s PvP skills suck, I found I still racked up lots of honor points in the WoW battlegrounds this weekend. I would claim that some of it was due to strategic and tactical skill rather than one-on-one PvP skill. But maybe its just MMORPG game design that ensures I got some reward for the time spent.

Skill in WoW PvP doesn't matter a good goddamn.  All you have to have is time to beat the other drooling retarded chimps who are trying to put more time in than you.

I think you are confusing pvp with rank.  Not everyone pvps for rank.

You're right.  That wasn't the point I was addressing at all.

 :roll:

Salient if you are talking about how many cars Rob Pardo has.  Not so salient if you are talking about the profitability of WoW.

Many people with a high PvP rank are unskilled. All are grinders.

True. But skill can increase the rate at which you grind. Based on a brief experience in Alternac Valley this weekend, I’d say fast reflexes and better situational awareness would have saved me a few times. Of course, I play in first person, which is bad for situational awareness. But I find that fun.

A lot of people seemed to be operating with almost zero tactical skill, which showed up on the kill board later. They would throw themselves at the nearest enemy concentration, with almost zero chance of making a kill. A quick reading of the map would reveal a better spot where our side had superiority, and were therefore making the rapid kills. So I’d say skill does make a difference, but you can substitute time for skill up to a certain point on the ladder.

The BG's are not about farming honor anymore - they are about ending as quick as possible so you get the honor for winning.

And some people want to show up on the top of the list, even if it means they lose.  So they won't take one for the team, so to speak, preferring to keep their deaths down.

I'm the kind who goes on suicide missions if it means capping a flag in AV or AB or sacrificing for the FC in WSG.  I just don't really care about the deaths thing, unless I'm on a team with people who are going for the kill-to-death ratios.  Those people just piss me off.

Pvp doesnt take that much skill in the first place, theres only a few things you can do in every situation.  The people pvping all day are probably better at it simply because of the fact that they do it all day.  Everytime a "whos the best of this class" thread pops up on the real forums the answers usually tend to favor those people currently grinding rank at that point, and i know my reflexes and responces were much better when i pvped all day than they are now.  Im not saying high rank = skill by any means but i think theres a very direct correlation between how much time you spend pvping and how good at it you are.

THat's nothing new though. ANYONE who plays something alot has a chance of getting better at it, if they choose to improve at it (as in, not those just grinding the same thing over and over for gold). Of COURSE PvPing more makes you better at PvPing. Just like Raiding more gives you skill and knowledge for raiding.

That's why the current Rank thing is sorta stupid, and why it's going away. It's not an indication of skil. It's an indication of a vast difference in time spent.

When I do BGs I very often contribute a lot more to my team that the others players and I am usualy the lowest ranked person in the BG (Rank 2!) because I hardly ever do them. Does this mean I get more honour and rep out of the BGs? No.

Therefore there is no correlation between rank and skill.

People who grind BGs are not better skilled than others. I assure you that you can get a group of skilled players and put them against a group of High Ranked players and the skilled players will win. Because doing well at BGs doesn't require skill.

Actually, the highly ranked players will have epic gear and the others wont. So they might win.

Does the kill board in WoW take account of the number of deaths as well as kills? I didn’t pay that much attention to it. I guess that might be an incentive not to die. Seems to me though there is some tactical incentive not to die, as a smaller force that isn’t dying can hold off a larger force that is spending much of its time running back from the graveyard. Which seemed to be happening in some battles I was involved in.

 One thing I did like about my brief visit to Alternac Valley was that it was pretty chaotic, with lots of people having rather different agendas for being there, and often working at cross-purposes. That to me felt pretty immersive and warlike. If everyone had been following the same agenda and strategy, it would have felt more like playing on a football team than fighting a war. Though I guess if you were looking for a team sport rather than a simulated war, that chaos would be kind of frustrating.

 

It counts deaths... but the ordering is done by kills, deaths only work to sort out ties. So for pure scoreboard whoring you don't care how many times you die.

The losing side in a war, maybe. I would assume the there are some military groups out there who are quite well organised and work together very well, on an infantry level anyway.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/collectors.html (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/collectors.html)

Well - looks like they finally saw the $$.

O.M.G

Where do I pre-order?!?!?

The original collector's edition was worth it JUST for the art book.

I will definitely get the new one as well, JUST for the art book.

And only 1 pet is lame. The original had 3 pets to choose from.

You prettymuch summed-up my thoughts, Jobu.

I still get a kick out of the artbook.

The pet is very very pretty though.

I should probably order a second copy for ebay.

My daughter's ecstatic.  She hasn't even seen what the new pet looks like.  Her highest toon is still 12, and will probably stay that way.

2 copies preordered yay.

All games should have collector's editions like this.  I am very happy with the collector's edition I already have, and was so so so hoping they'd come out with one for BC.

I'm sorely tempted. I didn't get the first one but a  friend of mine did, and the artbook was pretty awesome. Considering the game+artbook was pretty much what they would cost seperately, and it came with the pets, I might end up buying the CE this time.

I'm not sure the expansion will have the same resell value as the original collectors edition but I wish I had bought 10 copies to sell on ebay 2 years later for a 400% profit.

Lol at the collectors edition. Time to buy that and not open it and then sell my original box.

How much did the original CE's go for?  I looked but didn't see one on Ebay.

I looked a while back and they were in the 300-400 range.

They still are.  (http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2F&fkr=1&from=R8&satitle=warcraft+collector%27s+edition&category0=)

There's a few there in the $100 range, but they were opened boxes.

Insane.

Why would it matter if they are opened or not?  Unopened are probably at their peak value right now.

Assuming the accounts go with the opened boxes, so you get the pets.

(I'm only in it for the pets).

It would matter because the person selling might have had a banned account for being a botter?

Oh bloody hell.  They had to make the pet a dragon (well, whelp)?  The only quicker way to sucker me in would be something along the lines of a cute, tiny zhevra or a bloodpetal pest.

Well, there's that. There's also the whole "New in Box" thing that collectors get such a hard-on over. 

Considering there were only 75k or so Collector's Editions, and there's now over 7mil subs (and who knows how many boxes moved.) an unopened box probably is a rarity of sorts.   The funny thing is the entire notion of collecting something like a computer game in the first place.  Nevermind that it's an MMO and won't last forever even IF you could find a machine to run it on 25 years from now. 

Ah yes, I can see it now.  I'm dead and gone and in my will I leave my collector's editions to my grandkids.  Oh how they'll treasure this sterile box that hold no memories of me or the long-terminated game within for them.  It'll be lovely.

The nether whelp is very cute. I saw it in one of those videos where people are running around as different BC creatures. It doesn't look like the other whelps in game, it has a largish head and very big eyes, as well as a general cutifying of the face by making it less angula, etc. :P

WTH, the CE pet is a fire-lizard!? That's almost as good as the panda pet. Crap now I need to get some CE copies. I wonder if the pet sits on your shoulder.

Given the amount of time I've spent in the Wetlands farming for a whelpling, $30 seems a small price to pay for one. But that's me. I think "small pets" are one of the best things WOW did.

Hey, one of my victories - A Crimson whelpling dropped for me the first time I ever visited the Wetlands with my Rogue.  I'd only been playing for about a week and it was the second whelp I'd killed.

I had no idea for months that they were rare.  He just kept me company and I never even noticed people staring.  I honestly think I must have been the first Guy in Europe to get one. 

I don't think I saw a single whelpling as a pet when I played for the first 3 months or so.

My personal favourit pet is the Kwee Q. Peddlefeet pet (http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/mob.html?wmob=16075), a goblin in a cupid outfit (Wings, bow and heart headed arrows, and whatnot) which you could get as a fairly rare random drop out of the Valentines event gift boxes.

it was even better, becuase you used it on someone else - you fire an arrow at someone, and he follows that person around just like their pet.

There were 2 versions.. a permenent pet and the arrows.   I loved the arrows, because our GL hated the little goblin.  I'd fire it at him in the middle of raids just to hear him bitch about, "..this freaky green thing following me again!"

I just got my only-available-to-Horde Black Tabby cat.  Used to be called a Maine Coon cat.

Traded a horde guy for the Prairie Chicken from Westfall (I did the quest, he picked up the egg).

Still trying to get an emerald whelpling.  On my third toon toward 60 and sick of farming dream whelps. 

I want a mini-orc on a leash.

yeah, i had loads of the normal arrows (the ones that stuck the pet on someone else) but i also scored 3 of the permanent pet ones.

They had a similar deal with the rose petals.  you could get piles of rose petals (made rose petals flutter around a targeted character) which you had only a limited quantity (and they had an expiry date) or if you were lucky, you could get a Bouquet of roses, which was a permanent item, held in the offhand, that you could use to generate the rose petal effect (not sure what the cooldown on it was).

The rose petals were great.  I wiped one of our vael attempts when i dropped the things on vael.  The rose petals scaled in size relative to the target, so Vael had these volkswagon size rose pettals falling everywhere around him, and loads of people suffered massive visual lag and promptly died. (i always wanted to try it on Ragnaros, just for a gag.)

OOh, I didn't know there was a permanent rose petal item.  That was a pretty cool effect.

I'm a bit surprised that Amazon seems to be the only store carrying this so far.

Price seems reasonable as well.

Gamestop has it too.

EB/Gamestop actually sent me an email telling me it was available and how to go about placing an order and then cancelling my original regular order.

My Murky pretty much rules everything.

Although, being a rogue, I cant keep him out in PVP, since he is a dead giveaway when im stealthed.

DANCE MURKY DANCE!

Noob Question: is buying BC worth it if you're not at level 50 yet?

No. Not unless you think the 2 new races (and their respective starting zones) are worth $50.

Level cap is 60 btw..

Yes, for the pets, for the sightseeing, for the quests, and for the gathering professions (although I expect the new starting zones to be a zoo for a few months).

What sightseeing? Outland isn't open access for newbs (unless you want to die). Besides that, you get newb Draenei and Blood Elf starting zones, but that's only about 2 or 3 hours worth of questing. Comstar, if he plays casually, but consistently, will probably be in his 30's or 40's by the time the expansion hits. Why would he want to pay extra cash just to see newb zones he can't do anything in (seriously...I'm just wondering)?

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The pet does nothing, and it's only a part of the collector's edition (last I checked) A collector's edition which is probably going to be $20-30 more than the regular edition.

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If this was an expansion that actually added a large variety of new gameplay for people across all levels (like Jump to Lightspeed or the Guild Wars expansions do), then it'd be worth it.