Wrath of the Lich King expansion

[Koyasha]

I only got around to reading this whole thread now, but I did want to comment on the whole 'gear reset' topic.  I find it interesting that I saw pretty much all comments dedicated to raiders and none to anyone else.

I'm not currently raiding in WoW, so I don't really care that much whether there's a raid progression or not.  I agree that if I was raiding, I would want to see SOME kind of progression - make my raiding in original WoW mean something when I come into BC, then make my raiding in BC mean something in WotLK.  It doesn't even have to be as extreme as YOU MUST HAVE this gear, as long as the gear gives me a noticeable and significant advantage when I go into the new raids.

However, what I'm more interested in right now since I'm basically a hardcore non-raider (I play a LOT, but I don't raid, I do dungeons, I pvp, I roleplay, etc) is that everything I've done isn't going to be invalidated within a matter of days of the expansion hitting.  Given the population of 'casuals' and non-raiders in WoW, I don't find it hard to imagine that there's a lot of people out there who are going to spend the next 6-9 months at 70, doing dungeons and pvp, and getting arena/pvp gear and dungeon sets.  If, like when BC hit, all that stuff becomes completely worthless, and only the top tier raiding gear is still somewhat valuable partway through the new content, the question is going to come up: Why didn't we all just unsubscribe after hitting 70, until the expansion came out?  Sure, when BC hit, Naxxramas gear was still useful for quite a while into the new expansion...but everyone that'd spent the last year working on Scholomance, Stratholme, Upper Blackrock Spire, getting their dungeon sets and their quested "tier 1/2" set, getting tradeskills, pvp epics, and faction items...  All of that was blown out of the water within days of Burning Crusade release.  The guy that manages to squeeze in a dungeon twice a week in hopes of finishing his set had all that time and effort wiped completely, instead of slowly progressing upward.

Of course we're going to have a completely different set of gear when we hit 80.  Of course we're going to have to upgrade our stuff.  But let there be a line of progress instead of a complete gear reset and effort-erasing when the expansion comes out.

If I have a full suit of blues and purples from dungeons and heroics, and I replace more than 50% of my gear within days of Wrath of the Lich King, I'm going to be upset, and I don't think I'm going to be interested in playing further, once I reach 80 and have some fun by experiencing most of what I can easily do at least once.  I don't know how many people agree with me, but that's the same sentiment I've heard from friends and people on some of the channels I hang out on.

[Azazel]

Feels about right.  4-5 years from now the game will look dusty and lose appeal from age and graphics alone.  I could see them launch Warcraft 4 to build up more Lore to base a future WoWx to, but launch a new MMO in the meantime.  Let WoW die off slowly while the buzz around the storyline of Warcraft4 builds up.  3-4 years after than launch WoW2 just as the new MMO (Diablo online or Starcraft online, etc.) is starting to wane.  They could easily continue to creat the ebb and flow of popularity along with using their tech. compass for predicting pushing new graphics, etc.  

Do you really think so? Because, you know, EQ1 is still plugging away with a pretty decent couple-of-hundred-thousand subs from all reports. Which might only be 40-50% of their peak, but that's a lot of people still. EQ may be more "sticky" than WoW because of the forced grouping mechanic leading to stronger social ties (I know I still like my old EQ1 guildies better than anyone I've met in WoW, and I haven't played EQ1 properly since just after WoW was released). But still. Most of 9m players having WoW as their first game... I can't see it dropping low enough to "die off" in another 4 years. I see it still sucking in good money in 10 years' time to be honest. I can see a SC MMO in a few years, but with the release of SC2 soon and the success of WoW still hugish, SC-MMO is a while away yet..

[Tarami]

...(I know I still like my old EQ1 guildies better than anyone I've met in WoW, and I haven't played EQ1 properly since just after WoW was released)...

Slightly off-topic, but I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who seemingly never connected with people in WoW. Hell, I feel more tightly bond to the people in my current LotRO-guild than I ever really did with the WoWers that I had "known" for a year. I've never really been able to pin-point why that is, but it certainly is. I still hate most people I run into, but atleast I can find the people I do sort of know cool to group and chat with. I even find myself trying to convince people to help someone in the guild do some specific quest that I know he wants done, something that probably would have been considered strange earlier.

I'm new to MMOs but certainly not new to online gaming, having QuakeWorld and onwards in my trunk, and I've never had so little feel for the community as in WoW. I wonder why, and if it's something I share with more people?

[KyanMehwulfe]

No, it's indeed the game. For many reasons, would could be illustrated in detail. It's just not a social conduit as a whole, nor does it have many of the 'lows' needed to create those 'highs'. It's almost odd, but I look back on 3 and a half years of WoW and beta now, and yet I don't really have more social moments, events, other such memories than I do from other MMOs, both before and after WoW, which I played for a mere 2 to 4 months.

If I sit down and try to really map out those years, a lot more slowly comes, too. But there have been so fewer defining memories because they're not shared nearly as often with folks you really like (or really like to dislike).

As for how long it'll last, UO is going on its 10th year and its peak was 250k or so North Americans. Granted, very dedicated and loyal base; WoW's is much more fickle. But they're also easily satisfied. With such a massive population now, I could easily see WoW still [even if barely] alive past 2015. Especially if they go the SOE route and offer a Blizzard package subscription. $25 for WoW2, Diablo 3 Premium (a la Hellgate), and WoW1? WoW wouldn't be going anywhere soon.

[Trippy]

Do you really think so? Because, you know, EQ1 is still plugging away with a pretty decent couple-of-hundred-thousand subs from all reports.

It's lower than that (low 100K) if the Son of the Site Which Shall Not Be Named (which appears to be down) is to be believed.

[Azazel]

So does EQ1 still have more active Subs than EQ2 now?

[Trippy]

According to the above not anymore.

However any subs numbers for SOE games have to be taken with a few heaping tablespoons of salt given that 1) SOE stopped giving out even vague sub numbers after getting stomped by WoW back in 2005 and 2) the Station Pass dramatically confuses the counting methodology.

[Dren]

Just to clarify my statement.  When I meant "die off," I meant slowly decline in numbers rather than their steep climb over the past 2-3 years.  When I mentioned a WoW2, in my mind, there still would be a WoW.  I fully realize WoW will be still around 10+ years from now in one form or another.  If UO can do it, WoW certainly can.

I forgot to mention that they not only have other franchises to exploit, they have several segments throughout the world to launch (Which , by the way, is how UO has supported itself.)  They have already started this type of delayed launching scheme which can really help them extend the life of each game.  Just continue to do delayed launches in other nations around the world as you launch new stuff here and in Europe. 

As I said, I'm sure there is a large map that shows how these franchises and marketing segments overlap each other over time and region.  I was not suggesting WoW would "die" anytime soon.  Actually, it is still growing and probably will for the next few years as they continue to launch into more regions with continued growth as each expansion is launched abroad too.

Their interest into a new MMO will really start boiling once the US and European numbers start to dip in a significant way.  That will signal the fact that they need to roll something new through "The System."

*Edited for clarity.

[Simond]

Hmm. I wonder what the market for MMOGs is like in South America? There's already a Spanish version of WoW, after all.

[Tarami]

While I'm relatively convinced WoW will still be alive after ten or maybe even fifteen years, I think we might have a world-first when it comes to an MMO that might actually get a successful successor. Blizzard may be one of the very few studios that actually has the discipline to make a game that's good enough to completely (except for the complete suckers) replace the former version. It's a bit optimistic, but if anyone, it's Blizzard, they got it down to a proper industry. Insert funds, out comes successful games.

[Nonentity]

Hmm. I wonder what the market for MMOGs is like in South America? There's already a Spanish version of WoW, after all.

If you go play on a Ragnarok Online free server, 95% of the people on them are from Brazil.

I'm just sayin'.

I know a Brazillian guy who was living with one of my friends. He spoke English, but when he had a friend from Brazil come visit who did not know English, we were all sitting around talking about WoW, and when my friend translated to the Brazillian guy, he smiled and nodded and was all like 'Ragnarok!'

I wanted to cry.

[Venkman]

Blizzard is most likely going to have more competition for gaming dollars with this next expansion; maybe they should try and do better than 'just more of the same'.

From who? Seriously. Looking at what's coming between now and the movie release, I don't see anything that'll put a serious dent into WoW's account. Further, I don't see that many AAA MMOGs coming at all. I can't think of any upcoming IP-based MMO that resonates with gamers as strongly as Warcraft. Maybe if Bioware actually announces their game someday I'll reassess, but they're at least two years off in my opinion because afaik what they are doing is still just conspiracy theories and hope. There's always the chance an over-dense genre can kill WoW with a million paper cuts. But even here, there's a huge gulf between games people claim to be working on for this audience and the actual ones that will launch.

The only thing that can kill WoW at this point is them not releasing interesting new content in a timely fashion, dying to attrition by boredom. They still have three untried but big areas to cover though:

• Housing and all that means (RP, vendors, crafting, buffs, attackable ala CoX, etc)
• Real crafting and all that means (real resource acquisition, skills-based results, etc)
• Progressive storyline. Heck, LoTRO players are still holding their breath this'll happen, and that'd only be the second active MMO to ever have it seriously.
  
  

So I don't think we can count them out just yet.

[Dren]

• Progressive storyline. Heck, LoTRO players are still holding their breath this'll happen, and that'd only be the second active MMO to ever have it seriously.
  
  

I was just running by that tower that is in rubble and fire at Honor Hold for the 50th time thinking, "It would be nice if that tower changed over time."  I mean, after all this time of NPC working on that thing, it never gets any better.  I'd settle with it getting built back up and then torched again by bombardment on a periodic cycle.  Or, make it possible to let the players donate raw materials to build it back up....just for the hell of it and for pride.  Hey, some people get into that kind of thing (RP.)

I know that isn't what you had in mind for "Progressive storyline," but have at least something change over time.  I'd settle for that.  Obviously, they could go a lot further than this.  Just one portion of this could be making it possible for the players to change areas depending on whether Horde or Alliance control it.  Yes, this happens already in some of the BC content, but go further with it than a general buff and access to flightpaths.  Control economy.  Build new temporary structures, etc.  Make the NPC economy change based on it a la FFXI.  Go even further with more direct control on economy and military forces a la Factions in UO.

So.Much.Potential.

[Morfiend]

They are planning a whole zone like you just described for WotLK. Its going to be a capturable city, and as people fight to retake it, they will use siege weapons to knock buildings and walls down. Once the heavy fighting is over the winning side will need to rebuild the city and its defences. who knows how well it will work, but thats their plan.

[Dren]

They are planning a whole zone like you just described for WotLK. Its going to be a capturable city, and as people fight to retake it, they will use siege weapons to knock buildings and walls down. Once the heavy fighting is over the winning side will need to rebuild the city and its defences. who knows how well it will work, but thats their plan.

Ah, that has some elements that I'd certainly like to see.  I need to read that information better.  I thought they were only talking about a new BG, which would be instanced and not persistent enough for what I was thinking about.

Good to know.  Thanks.

[Simond]

They are planning a whole zone like you just described for WotLK. Its going to be a capturable city, and as people fight to retake it, they will use siege weapons to knock buildings and walls down. Once the heavy fighting is over the winning side will need to rebuild the city and its defences. who knows how well it will work, but thats their plan.

Prediction: The city will be permanently owned by Alliance on PvE servers, and Horde on PvP servers.

[Paelos]

They are planning a whole zone like you just described for WotLK. Its going to be a capturable city, and as people fight to retake it, they will use siege weapons to knock buildings and walls down. Once the heavy fighting is over the winning side will need to rebuild the city and its defences. who knows how well it will work, but thats their plan.

Ah, that has some elements that I'd certainly like to see.  I need to read that information better.  I thought they were only talking about a new BG, which would be instanced and not persistent enough for what I was thinking about.

Good to know.  Thanks.

Yes, from what they say there will be destroyable buildings, seige weapons, and a capturable world zone that's uninstanced. This will be a large step in the right direction towards the ideas set up in DAOC's RvR combat. IMO, the more WoW steals from Mythic in their development cycle of zone behavior, the more successful this game will get in retention away from WAR.

[Fabricated]

They are planning a whole zone like you just described for WotLK. Its going to be a capturable city, and as people fight to retake it, they will use siege weapons to knock buildings and walls down. Once the heavy fighting is over the winning side will need to rebuild the city and its defences. who knows how well it will work, but thats their plan.

Prediction: The city will be permanently owned by Alliance on PvE servers, and Horde on PvP servers.

What's up with that anyway? There seems to be a real dichotomy in attitude/player types between the Horde and Alliance, which is one of the reasons I almost always roll Alliance. Like 90% of the horde players I've grouped with that weren't 10 year-olds wanting to play Taurens or Undead were 50 year-old MMO burnouts that take the game too fucking seriously.

[Jayce]

Prediction: The city will be permanently owned by Alliance on PvE servers, and Horde on PvP servers.

What's up with that anyway? There seems to be a real dichotomy in attitude/player types between the Horde and Alliance, which is one of the reasons I almost always roll Alliance. Like 90% of the horde players I've grouped with that weren't 10 year-olds wanting to play Taurens or Undead were 50 year-old MMO burnouts that take the game too fucking seriously.

I rerolled Horde after the expansion.  I have not found that to be the case.  I think Horde are on average more mature, though there are of course plenty of exceptions.

I think the reason the prediction will be true is that Horde are still more PvP focused as a side, so that gives them a slight edge on PvP servers where the population tends to be equal.  On PvE servers, the population has been shown to have twice the population on Alliance side on average, so the conclusion is foregone there.

[caladein]

Having played as both sides on PvP servers, Horde/Alliance really aren't that different. Maybe the one notable exception is Stormwind can get... odd at times, but Org and Ironforge are basically the same city.

On the world PvP stuff, the Alliance domination on PvE servers is really just because they can just muscle people down with their 2:1 population advantage. On the two PvP servers I've played on, the objectives go back-and-forth regularly, especially out in the Bone Wastes since that one actually matters :P. (Also, Horde has a 1:1.1 advantage on PvP servers, so that also factors into it.)

All that said, you can't ignore the battleground statistics that give the Horde such a decisive lead that something besides the global 1.4:1 population ratio has to come into play.

[Morfiend]

Wow my battlegroup is losing AV 45 to 360. No imbalance here.

[Dren]

I haven't gotten into BG's yet, but I constantly hear from my guildmates that do them that Alliance sucks (we are Alliance.)  They find that they typically have no strategy and only are there to go "pew pew" and die a lot. 

This is on a PvE server btw.

[Paelos]

The Alliance mostly sucks at battlegrounds because they never bother to get coordinated.

[Xanthippe]

Wow my battlegroup is losing AV 45 to 360. No imbalance here.

Amazing.  Your battlegroup clearly sucks.  Here's mine (Vengeance).

                                      Horde                                         Alliance
Alterac Valley                   139                                             108
Arathi Basin                       27                                               34
Warsong Gulch                  14                                               21
Eye of the Storm               73                                               64

Horde wins AV whenever they play a little bit of defense. 

[Train Wreck]

Horde wins AV whenever they play a little bit of defense. 

I can't remember the last time I've seen anybody play defense in AV.  In my Battlegroup, they ridicule people that try to defend in both the raid and on the WoW forums, because it will prolong the fight, and they'd rather lose right away and start over again than to fight and win an epic battle that lasts for hours.  AV is such a shadow of what it used to be, it's kinda sad and pretty lame.

[Train Wreck]

Prediction: The city will be permanently owned by Alliance on PvE servers, and Horde on PvP servers.

What's up with that anyway? There seems to be a real dichotomy in attitude/player types between the Horde and Alliance, which is one of the reasons I almost always roll Alliance. Like 90% of the horde players I've grouped with that weren't 10 year-olds wanting to play Taurens or Undead were 50 year-old MMO burnouts that take the game too fucking seriously.

I rerolled Horde after the expansion.  I have not found that to be the case.  I think Horde are on average more mature, though there are of course plenty of exceptions.

I think the reason the prediction will be true is that Horde are still more PvP focused as a side, so that gives them a slight edge on PvP servers where the population tends to be equal.  On PvE servers, the population has been shown to have twice the population on Alliance side on average, so the conclusion is foregone there.

After my stint back on Emerald Dream as a Horde, I've found it to be riddled with children, not just pain in the ass high school kids but very young ones too.  And Ninja-ing is back with a vengeance, it's as if they think that just because it's SFK and not Kara then they are free to roll need on bops.  One of them was so overt that he kicked people out of the party before they have a chance to roll.  They were so pissed off that they actively monitored which instances he was in to warn everybody else about him (and good for them).

I do expect, or at least hope, that the maturity level will soar after the newbie char levels.

[Xanthippe]

I can't remember the last time I've seen anybody play defense in AV.  In my Battlegroup, they ridicule people that try to defend in both the raid and on the WoW forums, because it will prolong the fight, and they'd rather lose right away and start over again than to fight and win an epic battle that lasts for hours.  AV is such a shadow of what it used to be, it's kinda sad and pretty lame.

I was just in one of the more fun AVs on my battlegroup.  They happen fairly often.  One hour, 9 minutes.  A little long, but we won a hard fought battle down to the wire.  I ended up with 429 bonus honor and who knows how much from hks.  I had ~30 hks, playing offense.  I'm sure defense had more.

Horde had a group of about 10 on O and 10 on D.  Their group playing D took advantage of the bottlenecks, tried to ninja back gys and towers, as well as tried to stop us from making progress.

Now, fpr cavesitters only interested in maximizing honor, it wasn't a good game, but for those of us playing, it was F-U-N.

[Simond]

The Alliance mostly sucks at battlegrounds because they never bother to get coordinated.

On a lot of older PvE servers, this seems to be a holdover from the "World PvP" era, where it didn't matter what each individual did in TM/XR as the Alliance had enough numbers to just zerg the Horde under. So what happened was that Horde players had to organize to survive in PvP, while Alliance looked like they just ran around in circles hammering on random buttons. ;)

Combine that with the original (single server) BG queues which led to Horde players getting twice as many games as Alliance (and therefore more practical experience) and the fractionally better PvP racials for most Horde races, and all the little edges add up.

Except in AV, which has a crappy map anyway. 

[Paelos]

The Alliance mostly sucks at battlegrounds because they never bother to get coordinated.

On a lot of older PvE servers, this seems to be a holdover from the "World PvP" era, where it didn't matter what each individual did in TM/XR as the Alliance had enough numbers to just zerg the Horde under. So what happened was that Horde players had to organize to survive in PvP, while Alliance looked like they just ran around in circles hammering on random buttons. ;)

Combine that with the original (single server) BG queues which led to Horde players getting twice as many games as Alliance (and therefore more practical experience) and the fractionally better PvP racials for most Horde races, and all the little edges add up.

Except in AV, which has a crappy map anyway. 

Um, it's moreso that most of the Alliance players I know raid, so when we're doing pvp it's supposed to be a non-catassing experience. I personally just don't like going through the time and effort of throwing together groups, coming up with strategy, and leading. I do enough of that on PvE content, so when I'm pvping, I just do it to waste time. Those that take it seriously and want all the rewards are very coordinated in the Alliance, but we have more of people like myself who just do it as a side-show.

[Nonentity]

Wow my battlegroup is losing AV 45 to 360. No imbalance here.

Amazing.  Your battlegroup clearly sucks.  Here's mine (Vengeance).

                                      Horde                                         Alliance
Alterac Valley                   139                                             108
Arathi Basin                       27                                               34
Warsong Gulch                  14                                               21
Eye of the Storm               73                                               64

Horde wins AV whenever they play a little bit of defense. 

Heh...


                            Horde      Alliance
Alterac Valley             83         167
Arathi Basin                183         67
Warsong Gulch               130         52
Eye of the Storm            230        113

There are a lot of AV AFKers who just let the Alliance win in AV.

On the BGs where we actually have to play, we win a majority of the time. It's great for honor farming!

[caladein]

Um, it's moreso that most of the Alliance players I know raid, so when we're doing pvp it's supposed to be a non-catassing experience. I personally just don't like going through the time and effort of throwing together groups, coming up with strategy, and leading. I do enough of that on PvE content, so when I'm pvping, I just do it to waste time. Those that take it seriously and want all the rewards are very coordinated in the Alliance, but we have more of people like myself who just do it as a side-show.

I was about to replay with... wait, but Elitist Jerks... and Curse... and then decided to actually look for numbers:

Number of Rated Guilds (means at least roughly half-way through Kara) on WowJutsu: 11994 / 15069, or ~1.3:1 A:H ratio of not shitty raiding guilds. That's actually closer to even then the 1.4:1 A:H ratio for 70s, so at least equal percentages of each side raid.

[Fordel]

I wonder how much of it is based around battle group server composition and the age of the servers. My BG Nightfall, is probably as even as your going to see:

                                          Wins
                       Horde                 Alliance
Alterac Valley           251                       267
Arathi Basin            61                         58
Warsong Gulch        112                    235
Eye of the Storm    157                    122


Don't ask me why the alliance is seemingly kicking so much ass in WSG at 70, it certainly hasn't been my personal experience :( . Must be preformed teams rolling through for honour?

[Zetor]

Cyclone battlegroup:
   Horde   Alliance
Alterac Valley   84   364
Arathi Basin   207   82
Warsong Gulch   170   53
Eye of the Storm   296   137

It does match my experience.. WSG and EOTS are horrible to pug as alliance, and AB isn't much better... otoh horde hasn't gotten past stonehearth in a LONG while. (often they don't even manage to cap icewing) :P Funny thing is, on my server [Crushridge, PvP] WSGs and ABs were 50-50 before cross-realm battlegrounds.


-- Z.

[Threash]

Funny thing is, on my server [Crushridge, PvP] WSGs and ABs were 50-50 before cross-realm battlegrounds.


-- Z.

So were AVs actually.

[Sogrinaugh]

Regarding BG statistics:

Some pretty simple shit.  If your faction is extremely likely to win AV, with the amount of bonus honor AV gives, which is huge, you are likely to always be in que for AV as its almost "garanteed" honor.  For example, alliance on the Ruin battlegroup.  Horde otoh, only que for AV when A) AFK honor farming or B) need marks, and are also afk honor farming for the most part.

Conversely, this means alliance in WSG, EotS, or AB who's AV que pops are almost certainly going to leave their present battleground, which gives horde in said battleground instance an advantage, accounting at least partially for the higher win ratio in the non-AV BG's.