Cataclysm

[Merusk]

Shit, another 2 years? About zero.    Wasn't that announced back in 2007?  6 years for a movie when most take 2 from announcement to release. Fuck, even LOTR only took 3 years from the date Jackson won the rights to film. 

[sinij]

With release of Cata, actors keep wiping at the first scene.

In 2 years WoW would be as relevant as the number of steps it takes to load and fire a cannon in UO.

[Azazel]

So that Sam Raimi Warcraft movie is supposed to come out in 2013. What do you think the odds are it actually gets made?

I don't think the drop in sub numbers we're seeing/will see are going to knock something like a feature film off. WoW is still the big dog, by far - and even a lot of ex-players/non-current subscribers would go see it...

[Simond]

The 4.2PTR has added a few new haircuts for some races/genders. There's a male orc one which is  

[Merusk]

I rather like the Anime Schoolgirl Ponytails the Night Elf is sporting.   The orc one.. oh lord.

Also, I always knew gnomes were emo.

[Soulflame]

Someone should shop a beiber hairdo on a male gnome.  Go all in.

[Fordel]

New Haircuts, re-subbing!


Only half joking. 

[Nevermore]

Why does that male troll have a palm tree growing out of his head?

[Simond]

[Sjofn]

I like the third troll lady one a lot. Also the fourth troll dude one makes me laugh. In a good way. <3

[Rasix]

Someone hand the gnome a buster sword. 

I would so put the troll mushroom cloud do on my shaman.

[Paelos]

I like the dwarf crab style

[Malakili]

Someone hand the gnome a buster sword. 

I would so put the troll mushroom cloud do on my shaman.

[SurfD]

I like the third troll lady one a lot. Also the fourth troll dude one makes me laugh. In a good way. <3

Yeah, I was always annoyed that the Troll ladies have no equivilent to the awesome Troll male full Dreadlocks cut.

Also, the first Orc Female one is hilarious. Who needs eyepatches? We have BANGS!

[WindupAtheist]

I don't think the drop in sub numbers we're seeing/will see are going to knock something like a feature film off. WoW is still the big dog, by far - and even a lot of ex-players/non-current subscribers would go see it...

Yeah but WoW doesn't need to hit zero subscribers for the already very dodgy idea of a big-budget movie to become an outright bad idea. The ideal time would have been like 2009 or so. By 2013 they'll be releasing the "World of Warcraft: F13 Quit Playing Two Years Ago" expansion and the height of their pop-cultural impact will be well behind them.

Edit: Speling

[SurfD]

I don't think the drop in sub numbers we're seeing/will see are going to knock something like a feature film off. WoW is still the big dog, by far - and even a lot of ex-players/non-current subscribers would go see it...

Yeah but WoW doesn't need to hit zero subscribers for the already very dodgy idea of a big-budget movie to become an outright bad idea. The ideal time would have been like 2009 or so. By 2013 they'll be releasing the "World of Wacraft: F13 Quit Playing Two Years Ago" expansion and the height of their pop-cultural impact will be well behind them.

Considering some of the absolutely abominable Video Game Movies we have gotten based on Game IP's that believably had 1/50th the brand exposure that WoW has, I really REALLY doubt that a 5% dip in the user base after an expantion release even registers on the radar for "things that might affect the lauch of a WoW movie".

[sinij]

Anecdote: I am playing Darkfall right now, and there is large flood of WoW PvP exiles. Apparently I was in one of the earlier waves.

Talking to my guild (we have been around since UO and play multiple games)both D&DOL and Rift have massive influx of WoW expats. Reading numbers on sub drop I  am surprised it wasn't larger, my bet there was some industrial-strength Enron-style window dressing going on to make it look good. Analyzing both peak server population, wow census and any other third-party source we get drop numbers order of magnitude larger. I can't imagine players are paying and not playing.

As to going after Arena-only players - it is PINNACLE of idiocy. These are your ideal 10h/week players that a) don't require new content, just don't fuck with balance too much b) don't spend inordinate time online chewing up your bandwidth and server resources.

[Lantyssa]

A lot of people let their sub run for a bit, even if they aren't playing, before finally cancelling.  Especially if it's their first MMO.  They think "maybe I'll want to log in" and keep the sub going instead of letting it lapse and thinking "I'll re-up if the urge becomes too strong".

[kildorn]

You have long subs (3/6 month or whatever the offerings are), and rare logins/don't want to cancel just yets.

My sub usually runs out about 3 months after I effectively stopped logging in for more than 5 minutes. My sub was active the entire time I was playing Rift, for example.

[Rasix]

It's typically a month to two months before I cancel an inactive WoW account.  Additionally, I have the bad habit of killing a sub less than a week after it's been renewed.

[Lantyssa]

It's why I've gotten into the habit of paying a month at a time.  I'm becoming rather fond of time cards.

[Dren]

A lot of people let their sub run for a bit, even if they aren't playing, before finally cancelling.  Especially if it's their first MMO.  They think "maybe I'll want to log in" and keep the sub going instead of letting it lapse and thinking "I'll re-up if the urge becomes too strong".

This is me.  I haven't played at all for about a month and just started up RIFT.  I'll probably cancel WoW this week, but I have to see how that affects my sons' account.  They tend to play FPS games on the PS3 now anyway, so maybe they won't mind me killing both accounts.

I'm a bit different than described above.  If I have any feeling I might want to play again after a break, I won't cancel my account.  Once I cancel, I'm done for good, but I may pay the company for months of me doing nothing with the game.  Not sure why....I'm just like that.

[WindupAtheist]

Considering some of the absolutely abominable Video Game Movies we have gotten based on Game IP's that believably had 1/50th the brand exposure that WoW has, I really REALLY doubt that a 5% dip in the user base after an expantion release even registers on the radar for "things that might affect the lauch of a WoW movie".

Okay yeah, they'll go ahead and produce it if they're fucking stupid and want to make a terrible movie that loses money, sure. But the window where blowing a hundred million on a WoW movie might have been a good idea has passed, and will be ancient history 2 years from now. It's not even so much a matter of subscriber math as it is just the fact that the zeitgeist has moved on.

[Ratman_tf]

Considering some of the absolutely abominable Video Game Movies we have gotten based on Game IP's that believably had 1/50th the brand exposure that WoW has, I really REALLY doubt that a 5% dip in the user base after an expantion release even registers on the radar for "things that might affect the lauch of a WoW movie".

Okay yeah, they'll go ahead and produce it if they're fucking stupid and want to make a terrible movie that loses money, sure. But the window where blowing a hundred million on a WoW movie might have been a good idea has passed, and will be ancient history 2 years from now. It's not even so much a matter of subscriber math as it is just the fact that the zeitgeist has moved on.

Budget $50 million
Gross revenue $200,804,534

Dumb shit makes money in hollywood. Just make WoW a CGI flick with a bunch of name actors doing the voices and moneyhats. Well, maybe not moneyhats. But it won't lose money.

[Ashamanchill]

For some reason my friends got his notion in our heads that Vin Diesel has been cast. I keep picturing him just painted green as Thrall, or Drek or what have you.

[Minvaren]

Gamon (post-Cata).   

[WindupAtheist]

Dumb shit makes money in hollywood. Just make WoW a CGI flick with a bunch of name actors doing the voices and moneyhats. Well, maybe not moneyhats. But it won't lose money.

Wow, after this insightful reminder that "dumb shit makes money in Hollywood" I guess nothing can ever flop.

Reality check: Garfield is an extremely well-known character that has been around for decades. Being able to make money on a dumb kid's movie like that isn't really all that surprising. Meanwhile more people watch NCIS in the United States alone when it's a rerun that doesn't crack the top ten ratings than play WoW in the entire world.

Outside of the small "games about farming orcs for experience points" pond it's just not that big a fish.

[Ratman_tf]

Dumb shit makes money in hollywood. Just make WoW a CGI flick with a bunch of name actors doing the voices and moneyhats. Well, maybe not moneyhats. But it won't lose money.

Wow, after this insightful reminder that "dumb shit makes money in Hollywood" I guess nothing can ever flop.

Reality check: Garfield is an extremely well-known character that has been around for decades. Being able to make money on a dumb kid's movie like that isn't really all that surprising. Meanwhile more people watch NCIS in the United States alone when it's a rerun that doesn't crack the top ten ratings than play WoW in the entire world.

Outside of the small "games about farming orcs for experience points" pond it's just not that big a fish.

#1. NCIS is a fun show, and rilly popular.

#2. It's been done with smaller IPs

[Velorath]

Dumb shit makes money in hollywood. Just make WoW a CGI flick with a bunch of name actors doing the voices and moneyhats. Well, maybe not moneyhats. But it won't lose money.

Wow, after this insightful reminder that "dumb shit makes money in Hollywood" I guess nothing can ever flop.

Reality check: Garfield is an extremely well-known character that has been around for decades. Being able to make money on a dumb kid's movie like that isn't really all that surprising. Meanwhile more people watch NCIS in the United States alone when it's a rerun that doesn't crack the top ten ratings than play WoW in the entire world.

Outside of the small "games about farming orcs for experience points" pond it's just not that big a fish.

#1. NCIS is a fun show, and rilly popular.

#2. It's been done with smaller IPs

When you're looking at the Box Office numbers for Garfield and Legend of the Guardians, I think you're reading them differently than I am.

[Merusk]

Stop using kid's movies. There aren't enough movies for us parents to pick & choose from.  Why did Alvin get so damn much money? The same reason that godawful G-Force movie did.. we had no other options to watch at the holidays.

You want to use something more relevant, pick Prince of Persia or another young-adult-targeted movie made from a video game.

In Fact, let's use Prince as it's the most-successful video game adaptation to date.  Guess what, it made less money than that shitty Airbender film AND the shitter Sex in the City 2.

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2010&p=.htm

Internationally it did pretty well, but I recall from the news at the time it was getting a lot of upplay in the Mideast because of the Persia angle.

[WindupAtheist]

Really I just don't see Warcraft being worth a shit as an IP outside of videogames. It's Lord of the Rings only dumb, jokey, generic, and hamfisted. I mean game adaptations can make money. Tomb Raider made more money than Prince of Persia. But "Indiana Jones, plus tits!" is a lot more palatable and marketable pitch than "Lolore The Movie, set in the head-trauma version of Middle Earth!"

[Simond]

Counterpoint: Hercules the legendary journeys and Xena, warrior princess were the lollore versions of Greek myth (executive producer - Sam Raimi) and at one point Xena was one of the most popular TV series in the world. WoW in the style of Xena/Herc? I'd watch it.

[WindupAtheist]

Maybe, but they'll never do it for fear of painting WoW as "Dumb Goofy Hercules/Xena Type Shit Online".

[Velorath]

Counterpoint: Hercules the legendary journeys and Xena, warrior princess were the lollore versions of Greek myth (executive producer - Sam Raimi) and at one point Xena was one of the most popular TV series in the world. WoW in the style of Xena/Herc? I'd watch it.

And the bar continues to lower...

At it's peak (2nd season out of 5 apparently), Xena had just under 8 million viewer in the U.S. (Worldwide ratings are harder to come by, so if you can provide them by all means go for it).  That's almost 12 million less than the aforementioned NCIS's last two seasons had.  For even more perspective, American Idol at it's peak had four times as many viewers as Xena at it's peak.  8 million peak viewers for something people could watch for free, and wasn't exactly a high budget production doesn't exactly make good case for the 100+ million budget WoW movie.  If it did, I'm sure we would have seen a Xena movie released in theaters.

Edit: Besides, a better example of lollorre Greek myth, which inexplicably made almost $500mil worldwide at the box office, would be last year's Clash of the Titans remake.

[Ironwood]

This is because none of you play the game anymore and don't have game shit to argue about, right ?