World of Warcraft hits 2,000,000 subscribers

[Fabricated]

I loved Diablo II because of the loot collection and randomized dungeons, which is something I think any hack-n-slash RPG requires in order to be fun. Sort of the same reason I loved PSO (best boss fights in any Online RPG ever), nevermind that there were sets of dungeon layouts rather than true randomization.

WoW doesn't feel like Diablo in the least outside of the "Blankety blank of the blank", color coded equipment and some of the graphical styling. That, and group dynamics didn't really mean shit in Diablo II, since it could be completed with pretty much any combination of character classes.

Also:

How is it that they are making this much money and are still so fucking slow with the content. They haven't even announced a goddamn expansion yet. I presume Vivendi is just soaking up all the money and not reinvesting any of it into WoW?

Probably it's going towards server pipe and hardware expansion. I feel sorry for the poor fuckers that have to do the DB and hardware maintenence. I'm glad my area of expertise isn't in databases, since every fucking place uses Oracle.

[WindupAtheist]

At least I'm not the only person who thinks CoH is just another also-ran MMO puttering along with 100k subs.  And tights.

[Paelos]

At least I'm not the only person who thinks CoH is just another also-ran MMO puttering along with 100k subs.  And tights.

Didn't they patch in capes? That was neat.

[Merusk]

What I find telling is that those of you who disliked WoW are the same folks who dislike PvE in general.

I enjoy it for the PvE. It reminds me of early EQ without getting my ass pounded by "even-con" monsters.  It's also a lot faster than early EQ, so it's a win-win for the PvE'r in me.  Some folks like PvE some don't.  The majority here don't, so you don't enjoy WoW. Big shocker.

Then there's the PvP. The PvP is ok, if you can get a decent group and not get zerged or be a zerg with 'me too' ers jumping-in after 15-mins. (not likely)   I haven't tried the battlegrounds yet because I'm a Hunter and we're a dime a dozen, so I can't speak about it directly but I've heardit's fun.   It's definatly not the kind of PvP folks who had raging hard-ons for UO are going to enjoy. It's level-based, which means you have to get to 57+ to get anything out of it. If you don't like the PvE in the first place you're  never going to get there. Bad if you're designing a PvP game, not so much if you're doing a PvE game with a PvP endgame.

Whatever it is, it's definatly not Diablo 2.  I couldn't stand that game and to this date it's the only one I've ever not cared if I lost the CD or not.  My assessment of it is the same as Alluvian's wife.

How is it that they are making this much money and are still so fucking slow with the content. They haven't even announced a goddamn expansion yet. I presume Vivendi is just soaking up all the money and not reinvesting any of it into WoW?

They're not turning that money around into content. They're STILL overwhelmed by the beast they've created and MAYBE they're looking at dropping some of it into CS.  An expansion isn't even on their radar yet.  Hell, Hero classes, something they said they'd do prior to any expansion are still 6-9 months away from even entering playtesting according to the in-dev page 

They are not a business that makes games.  They're gamers running a business.  Good practices and intelligent, focused direction aren't going to be a part of their model.  This has shown in everything they've EVER done.  Yeah it makes for good game, but it means they're going to be slow as hell because having fun and a 'great working environment nobody thinks of leaving' is second to doing actual, y'know, work.

[Hoax]

They were close to having rpg pvp that didn't suck ass, so close I stuck around hoping it would come to pass.  The changes they made in the way pvp is played for the BG's makes it obvious they see the weakness in their current system.  But unfortunately they were worrying about the bluebies and the raid guilds or whoever the fuck so they couldn't be bothered to improve the gameplay of contested zone pvp on pvp servers.  So I quit.  Fucking fix graveyards so I dont have to cope with bullshit spawn rush stupidity every fight and I'd still be playing I bet.

Nobody is going to make a better EQ clone then WoW so I am praying that they just stop trying to make EQ clones.

[HaemishM]

At least I'm not the only person who thinks CoH is just another also-ran MMO puttering along with 100k subs.  And tights.

I can name at least 5 or 6 MMOG's that would kill for 100k subscriptions. Why the fuck is being profitable without being the biggest e-peen on the block a bad thing?

[Trippy]

Yeah, bitches, it's that popular.

The link at the bottom of that page doesn't seem to be working.

Yep, school is definitely out.  Not only are WoW's numbers up, but I have to be a lot more careful walking the dog.  I have noticed that teenage girl drivers are easily as bad as the boys.

Last I'd heard, female drivers age 16-25 had finally overtaken male drivers of the same age group for most accidents/ problem drivers.  More aggressive, less careful and more easily distracted.  I can't remember where I heard it, though.

Assuming that's true, my guess is that some of that is from them talking on their cell phones. Even with hands-free-kits talking on the phone is a distraction:

http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/cellphones/

I wish I understood why people like diablo.  I found the first one fun for a month or so, but the second one just did NOTHING for me.  And I tried HARD to like that game.

To me Diablo played like a top down shooter with loot. It had even more frantic action than a shooter like Doom with tons of monsters on the screen at once. MUD-derived MMORPGs have traditionally only had one-on-one or party-on-one action which is frankly quite boring, though CoH tried to break out of the mold a little (with taking on 4 or 5 at a time doable in situations). Hellgate seems to be taking a step backwards from Diablo in terms of the number of monsters you fight at once, at least from the few videos I've seen.

I hope to hell that Auto Assault doesn't suck.   

Even if it does, it costs $10 less to find out than most of the others.

Of course, one has to wonder why they're only charging $40 or it instead of $50.

Maybe cause the bulk of the revenue for these games comes from the subscription fee. Plus NCSoft has the Lineage cash cows to subsidy the costs for their other games.

[Rodent]

God should smite theese fuckers, all this money and they still can't fix the lootbug involving mining and herbalism?

[Shockeye]

God should smite theese fuckers, all this money and they still can't fix the lootbug involving mining and herbalism?

THAT'S STILL NOT FIXED?!

[schild]

Did you see how fast they rushed in Battlegrounds and the honorsystem? It was with speed not seen since Road Runner cartoons.

By god, they're competing with the Star Wars Galaxies team.

[pants]

God should smite theese fuckers, all this money and they still can't fix the lootbug involving mining and herbalism?

THAT'S STILL NOT FIXED?!

Hmm.  I haven't run into a mining lootbug in ages.  Completely anecdotal evidence - but to my eyes they're fine now...

[Paelos]

The lootbugs are almost totally eliminated in my experience. However, they broke the boats in the process.

[Merusk]

The lootbugs are almost totally eliminated in my experience. However, they broke the boats in the process.

I hit one a month or so back.  Seems it's confined to copper and the low-level herbs.

[Rodent]

I hit the lootbug today when grabbing some bruiseweed, and my guildmate got it when mining some mithril. Could be it's just on the Euro servers theese days, but I doubt it.

[Phred]

At least I'm not the only person who thinks CoH is just another also-ran MMO puttering along with 100k subs.  And tights.

Didn't they patch in capes? That was neat.

Ya. I took advantage of the free 4 days for old subscribers and logged in and played my scrapper a bit. Other than getting him a cape, and glowing eyes you couldn't see when he had instant healing up, not much else seemed to have changed. Mission difficulty setting was clunky, having to track down some npc somewhere to set your difficulty level rather than being able to set it at mission enter time was pretty annoying, but my scrapper still played the same as he did on release, totally overpowered and boring at the same time.

I have to say thank god WoW copied EQ's movement system for sidestepping. Having to use seperate keys in CoH was ass. Turning the turn left/right keys into sidestep left/right when the right mouse button is held down is just too convenient to leave out of a control system, and meleeing in CoH was a huge PiTA without it.

I played for a couple of hours when I found out about the free trial and was curious what had changed but really, not much has.

[jpark]

Did you see how fast they rushed in Battlegrounds and the honorsystem? It was with speed not seen since Road Runner cartoons.

By god, they're competing with the Star Wars Galaxies team.

I bought the thesis espoused by Schilld, El Gallo et al. that they would be glacial on patches and new content.  I was not expecting Battlegrounds until next December.  Their ability to release it just before the summer, has quite surprised me.

The biggest problem for CoH, besides the fact Superhero genre may not be as large as DnD fantasy, is the similiarity of zones.  It's not really their fault, since the zones are urban.  But like real life, urban zones do look similar.  So many players don't get that feeling of "exploration" in CoH moving from one urban zone to another.  Some stand out - but most do not.
 

[HaemishM]

Yeah, bitches, it's that popular.

The link at the bottom of that page doesn't seem to be working.

FixX0r3d. I forgot to change it when I merged the topics.

[Alluvian]

What I find telling is that those of you who disliked WoW are the same folks who dislike PvE in general.

I enjoy it for the PvE. It reminds me of early EQ without getting my ass pounded by "even-con" monsters.  It's also a lot faster than early EQ, so it's a win-win for the PvE'r in me.  Some folks like PvE some don't.  The majority here don't, so you don't enjoy WoW. Big shocker.

Absolute opposite for me.  I did purely pve in wow and found it 'okay' but not really that engaging.  It was kind of like when a friend brought over lego starwars the other day.  Sure it was kinda fun and goofy, but it had no depth and we completed it in 4 hours.

I never got into the PVP or crafting in wow, and that is probably where the depth is, but I don't personally find crafting interesting in mmos.

Again, this was with 2 people, myself and my wife.  I rarely play in groups bigger than 3 or 4, and always with people I know well.  I have not taken a single pickup group EVER in the last 5 years.

For whatever reasons I like EQ2 more.  I just found much more content for myself, my wife and her friend in our little 3 person group.  Now that is pretty much an optimal group just by accident.  Shaman (arguably the best eq2 healer type), monk (weak tank), and ranger (good damage when the mob is facing away and VERY good when you add in a good bow).  That said, we duo a lot as well, with just shaman and ranger.  That group should logically suck, but with careful aggro management we can bounce mobs back and forth between us to keep me getting the rear attacks while the damage is split (shaman can take a good beating in eq2, probably more than ranger).

Maybe we just picked bad classes when we played for a month grouped up in wow.  Or maybe 2 people isn't enough to have fun with in wow, but we went hunter and shaman and found it entertaining as a diversion but nowhere I would like to spend too much time.

All that said, I hardly play a lot of EQ2 or any mmog these days.  I play maybe once or twice a week for maybe 3-4 hours each day.  I have become the ultimate casual gamer.  And I still like EQ2 better, wow felt too easy.  We don't die in EQ2 much, and when we do the penalty is gone in 15 mins or less, but we get in a LOT more close calls where a few last second heroic opportunities and the instant cast emergency spells make the difference with everyone near death and out of power.

I don't see where EQ2 is some masochistic game.  I am super casual and find it quite fun.  I also EXCLUSIVELY play with competent people who I can practically communicate via ESP with.  People I have been gaming with for YEARS, so maybe it is just the really good teamwork that lets me find it fun.  By myself I would just not play ANY mmo.

To each his own, I think the poster who mentioned having everything under one roof is probably on the money for why wow is number 1.  Specifically the performance on low end machines.  I personally dislike the art direction, but it is VERY low polygon (with good animations) which allows it to run on very low systems.  The EQ1 crowd most likely migrated there as EQ2 has huge system requirements.  Our systems run it fine switching between 'high detail' and 'balanced' settings though.  Certain dungeons kill my system on high detail, but going to balanced and shutting off torches and shadows works fine for me (and bumping up the model detail because I like the nicer player textures).

It would be interesting if we had an alternate universe where wow was the same game but with much higher system requirements.  I wonder how popular it would be then?

[Yegolev]

I have not seen any mention in notes of the loot bug being fixed.  In my experience, it is far, far more common in the newbie areas, and moreso in Durotar than Tirisfal.  I assume that it has something to do with the number of people.  I have sort of reconsidered my position with WoW and think now I should just get back to my guildies on Silver Hand (RP) instead of fighting the bad fight on Crushridge, so I should find out eventually.

[MahrinSkel]

FWIW, the "loot bug" seems to be a database scaling and loading issue, from what I have heard.  So it's not really something that can be fixed, so much as managed and worked around.  Once again, Oracle turns out to not be the magic bullet of MMO DBMS needs (the problem seems to be a result of designing around the terms of the liscense for the DB servers).

--Dave

[sidereal]

Is Oracle still licensing per-connection?  That was asinine 8 years ago.

[Yegolev]

FWIW, the "loot bug" seems to be a database scaling and loading issue, from what I have heard.  So it's not really something that can be fixed, so much as managed and worked around.  Once again, Oracle turns out to not be the magic bullet of MMO DBMS needs (the problem seems to be a result of designing around the terms of the liscense for the DB servers).

--Dave

If so, then this could possibly be fixed by throwing money at the problem... which is what we do at times.  Optimizing the read/write situation, SGA, redo log archiving, etc... it's a lot of damn work even without thinking about using fantasy hardware like load-balanced fibre channels to a EMC frame.  Not that SAP on Oracle on AIX is much like whatever they are using; I am not at all familiar with Oracle tuning on what I assume are Windows servers, but throwing RAM at it helps sometimes, or segregating the datafiles into hot/not-so-hot.  Will they drop the change on a performace-tuning team?  Doubtful, even if they have the money.

[squirrel]

Well make that 1,998,000. I loved the PvE - personally i thought it was fun. For a while. But the PvP just hasn't gotten any better. At all. In fact it's gotten worse. So, meh, i'll resub when they've done something interesting in PvP.

Am half tempted to go back to SB...god why do i NEED to be subbed to at least 1 MMORPG at all times?

[sidereal]

You had 2,000 subscriptions?  Holy crap.  They'll definitely notice that cancel.

[Xerapis]

Yes, the loot bug is alive and well and especially popular in copper veins and silverleaf bushes.

And it definitely occurs most in the human lands (in my experience). I just skate on my knees until I find another of the same, loot it and I'm back to normal.

I actually kind of like the way the character floats around instead of running after the loot bug hits....but I'm weird like that. I just start wondering how my rogue managed to pick up a couple levels of Elocator ^^

[squirrel]

You had 2,000 subscriptions?  Holy crap.  They'll definitely notice that cancel.

 

pwnt.

[Teleku]

You had 2,000 subscriptions?  Holy crap.  They'll definitely notice that cancel.

Actually, as the topic of the thread suggests, they probably wouldn't even blink at that.

I, personally, have enjoyed WoW greatly.  I feel it has the best atmosphere of any MMOG, and the best PvE.  The advance curve is perfect.  I also actually find myself enjoying the quest and the stories they construct for them (unlike EQ, which feels like all the quest are horribly written after thoughts).  It could be because I am a fan of the warcraft series though.  I have spent allot of time just exploring the game, going to see all the places in the past games first hand, which is kind of cool.  Its just allot of fun to explore in that game.  On top of all that, despite with how I hear you guys complaining about the low polys, I think the graphics are spectacular.  Looks better than any other mmog in that regard in my opinion, and the style of it makes it even better.  The graphical stats on some other games are better I guess, but the way Blizzard did the art work in the game made it look much better.

I guess YMMV however, heh.

[Trippy]

FWIW, the "loot bug" seems to be a database scaling and loading issue, from what I have heard.  So it's not really something that can be fixed, so much as managed and worked around.  Once again, Oracle turns out to not be the magic bullet of MMO DBMS needs (the problem seems to be a result of designing around the terms of the liscense for the DB servers).

The mining/harvesting "loot bug" is where you get stuck in the crouched position until you mining/harvest successfully or log out and log back in. It's specific to certain nodes and it's not just a random thing or a database performance issue. That's independent of the "loot lag" you can get because they are too busy playing with their money to get more database servers. I don't know if it's still true since I don't play anymore but Blizzard used to have the servers "clustered" so that 10 or so game servers would all share a common database server.

[Fabricated]

I'm not a master of database solutions (my line of work involves the hardware/OS end of things, and Windows/Linux on their own make me want to kill), but what else is there that can handle those kind of numbers?

DB2?

[Trippy]

Some more details about the China release of WoW.

Some interesting facts from the above:

Legend of Mir II, the most popular MMORPG in China, has over 20 million subscribers. The owner of the company that makes Legend2 is the richest man in China now.

There are 96 servers in China (the same number as there are in North America) with 32 more on the way.

China subscribers pay to play per minute at a cost of roughly $3.64 for 66 hours, 40 minutes of gameplay.

[schild]

So what you're saying is I overpaid by $11.36 per month because I didn't play for more than 66 hours.

Communism really does work, kiddies.

[Trippy]

So what you're saying is I overpaid by $11.36 per month because I didn't play for more than 66 hours.

Communism really does work, kiddies.

Legend2 costs a little over $4 a month to play so WoW has to compete against that game in pricing.

[schild]

So, what you're really saying is Everquest fucked us from the start.

Goddamn, just when I thought we were ahead of China in that whole capitalism thing.

Here's some fuzzy math.

Drop the price to a point where even the most casual player who can only play once every two weeks can afford, and you'll make more money hats.

$5 = more profit/subscribers.

I know, that's a very complicated equation. But $15 a month means people have to be invested in their character or it's a waste of cash. I'm beginning to like this whole China place.

[Trippy]

Drop the price to a point where even the most casual player who can only play once every two weeks can afford, and you'll make more money hats.

$5 = more profit/subscribers.

Yes the company that makes Legends of Mir II has over 140 subscribers across all their games. 140 FRICKING MILLION!

[Arnold]

Daiblo 1 and 2 were loot robot jesus. If there's ever an MMOG that perfects that exact same loot system, I'll be there so fast heads will spin.

If you didn't enjoy it, you simply don't care much about loot. I, for one, cared when my character got his Dirk Diggler - and now I'm done with the game. Until I want to play it again in a few months.

Asheron's Call had a random loot generator that a lot of people liked.  It would create all sorts of different items with different colors and properties.  In the early game, the most uber items were the good ones from the random generator.

But the MUD wimping too care of that.