WoW is dead. Long live WoW!

[shiznitz]

Not dead at all actually.

2.4 million Burning Crusades sold in one day.

I could link it but why bother? From a Vivendi press release.

[stray]

Yeah, it's pretty sad.

Never thought I'd defend the Master Chief in my lifetime, but I'm glad he won this battle (barely). Even overhyped shooters deserve more popularity than an MMO.

[Surlyboi]

Burning crusade?

I think they have an ointment for that.

[SnakeCharmer]

 

[Rasix]

Never thought I'd defend the Master Chief in my lifetime, but I'm glad he won this battle (barely). Even overhyped shooters deserve more popularity than an MMO.

 

I had more typed up, but that'll suffice.

[stray]

Hey, just shoot. It's OK. 

[Arthur_Parker]

Zerg rush.

http://gaming.monstersandcritics.com/pc/news/article_1250560.php/World_of_Warcraft_The_Burning_Crusade_scorches_day-1_sales_records
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/6363/7387/world-warcraft-sells-24m-copies.phtml
http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=37489
http://www.pcvsconsole.com/news.php?nid=3233
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12488
http://gamedeveloper.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=99152

All pretty much the same, I found this UK specific one interesting.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12490

UK Charts Dominated By World Of WarCraft

Although there was only one major new release in the UK last week, the first expansion for the hugely popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of WarCraft has dominated the charts.

Despite being released on a Tuesday instead of the more traditional Friday, it narrowly missed out (by under one thousand units) on beating the record for the fastest ever selling PC title in the UK, currently held by Eidos’ Championship Manager 04.

The Burning Crusade’s success has still been remarkable, though, accounting for 30 percent of all PC titles sold during the week – although this is again lower than Championship Manager 04’s record of 40 percent in April 2003. The expansion outsold the original World of WarCraft’s launch week by a factor of almost 4 to 1, a unique feat for any expansion.

Other movement in the chart has been limited, with Lost Planet and WarioWare moving down only one space – although Capcom’s Xbox 360 title outsold its rival by more than 2 to 1. As the current snooker championships continue on UK television, Sega’s official tie-in saw sales rise by 44 percent, to launch it into the top ten at number six.

As well as the original version of World of WarCraft re-entering at number twenty-eight, the top forty also contains a number of PC “super budget” titles, which have become a regular feature of the post-Christmas chart in the UK. eGames’ Galaxy of Games Red debuted as high as number twenty-four, with arcade conversion Sega Rally from GSP at number twenty-seven and Puppy Luv at number thirty-one.

[Falconeer]

Good ole Championship Manager...

[rk47]

I can't login. you're right. WoW's dead  Why'd they have to choose today after I got my TBC client to fuck things up >_<

[Azazel]

Well, the thread title is partly-right. All the old 58-60 content (and instances) are dead and buried now.

All hail the new king! Mudflation!

(yes, I know it's actually a flattening-out of the playerbase at the onset of the content, and that it's actually a good idea)

[damijin]

Still sitting back, wringing my hands in anticipation, as the people who have never played an MMO before come to realization that everything they have previously done is now worthless.

...And in a few months, everything they're doing right now will be too.

Delicious.

[Hoax]

Never thought I'd defend the Master Chief in my lifetime, but I'm glad he won this battle (barely). Even overhyped shooters deserve more popularity than an MMO.

 

I had more typed up, but that'll suffice.

Yeah seriously I didn't make it to 6 months in WoW but fuck off, Halo are you fucking kidding me?  Shit if you say "the Master Chief" again I'm going to just skip your posts from there on out.   

Felt like Rasix let you off too easy there.

[Azazel]

Still sitting back, wringing my hands in anticipation, as the people who have never played an MMO before come to realization that everything they have previously done is now worthless.

...And in a few months, everything they're doing right now will be too.

Delicious.

Heh, I had a good time playing the game so far, but I also had no interest in catassing raids. I see guildmates crying regularly about their superceded raid gear, yet they were still trying to raid MC a week before the expansion launched and whining about the lack of interest that caused those raids to be cancelled.

Still though, a bit of a shame to send so many instances into the bin just like that. I guess revamping them right now won't help BC expansion boxes sell, but I'd expect some Runnyeye/Cazic-Thule/Mistmoore/Unrest style revamps eventually for the 5-man places like Strat/Scholo/Dire Maul, and probably even UBRS/LBRS eventually.

[Nebu]

Good ole Championship Manager...

If all sports sims were like CM, I'd be a happy camper.  It's the game I always go back to when mmogs let me down.

[Ixxit]

Well, the thread title is partly-right. All the old 58-60 content (and instances) are dead and buried now.

All hail the new king! Mudflation!

(yes, I know it's actually a flattening-out of the playerbase at the onset of the content, and that it's actually a good idea)

Heh, you're not kidding.   I only play WoW very casually (highest character is a 25 rogue) and Ashenvale and Stonetalon mountains are completey and utterly devoid  of  other players.  Definately has the  modern day newbie EQ1 Freeport vibe going on.  In my travels though, I did see a level 26 Blood Elf that had surpassed my labour of the years in just a few days.  So continues the slow march to 60.

[stray]

Shit if you say "the Master Chief" again I'm going to just skip your posts from there on out.   

Hah. You have no idea how it pains me to say it.

But that should illustrate something. 

[Valmorian]

 I only play WoW very casually (highest character is a 25 rogue) and Ashenvale and Stonetalon mountains are completey and utterly devoid  of  other players. 

Good!  Less Ganking for my lowbie characters on PvP servers. ;)

[Morat20]

 I only play WoW very casually (highest character is a 25 rogue) and Ashenvale and Stonetalon mountains are completey and utterly devoid  of  other players. 

Good!  Less Ganking for my lowbie characters on PvP servers. ;)

My server is still fairly busy in the low-areas. A lot of Draenae, of course -- but people working on their alts too. Of course, I also play on a server that's probably in the top ten list for forced splits...

[WindupAtheist]

I play on a medium and I see people.  Then again, it's a PVP server and I have a guild to keep me company, so everyone else can just fuck off and let me level anyway. 

[Venkman]

They'll very likely revamp the old instances. It's a waste to not do it. All that content. No matter how many money hats they have, if you can repurpose the old, you do it. Like that Inn in Honor Hold. Or the reskinned models.

EQ1 goes through the same cycle. You want people to move on so you can upsell them on new content. Then you take your profit and revamp the old stuff and, maybe, upsell them on THAT too.

As too the people who cry for being mudflated, welcome to the genre.

[geldonyetich]

I'm hoping to see the overall expansion box sales done 1 month from now.

It's probably a more reliable count of current WoW players than active subscriptions, which would include those who may not be playing but didn't care enough about $15/mo take the time to unsubscribe.

[Morat20]

They'll very likely revamp the old instances. It's a waste to not do it. All that content. No matter how many money hats they have, if you can repurpose the old, you do it. Like that Inn in Honor Hold. Or the reskinned models.

EQ1 goes through the same cycle. You want people to move on so you can upsell them on new content. Then you take your profit and revamp the old stuff and, maybe, upsell them on THAT too.

As too the people who cry for being mudflated, welcome to the genre.

I kind of thought they were being obvious about that with the "Heroic" slider for dungeons. It seems a no-brainer that now that they have a mechanism in to switch instance difficulty and drops, that it'd be easy to set the old dungeons to heroic -- or have them be utterly different at level 70.

Maybe they'll take the oppurtunity to redo Molten Core for the 70 crowd, and remove all the suck.

[shiznitz]

They'll very likely revamp the old instances. It's a waste to not do it. All that content. No matter how many money hats they have, if you can repurpose the old, you do it. Like that Inn in Honor Hold. Or the reskinned models.

Instances, yes. However, it would be risky to revamp the "old" world too much because WoW's strength is the ease of adoption. The newbie game is very good and should not be toyed with.

[Azazel]

I'm not thinking of the newbie or even mod-level instances, but of the 4 previous "endgame" casual runs. Scholo, Strat (both), DM (since noone ever goes there anyway), and U/LBRS since aside from quests, those places have been totaly wiped off the map now. Time shortly to scale them either up or down, becaise they don't cut it anymore for the 58-60 crowd..

ZG and AQ20/MC are also pretty redundant now compared to level 58 green world drops..

[Venkman]

I agree Morat and Shiz. Heroic slider is an easy win, and you don't want to mess with the old world stuff too much because of the low barrier. They could easily make sweeping changes in content, but as long as they continue to scale to what can be provided by drops and questions along the way, they're fine. They absolutely shouldn't tune the old world for the powers players gained in the new one, including all the new talents that happen through many tiers.

I'm hoping to see the overall expansion box sales done 1 month from now.

It's probably a more reliable count of current WoW players than active subscriptions, which would include those who may not be playing but didn't care enough about $15/mo take the time to unsubscribe.

One thing that really help drive the WoW numbers to what they are is the staggered launch around the world. Every time they launched and broke records in the new territory, they drove up awareness in the old ones, and therefore box sales.

The expansion will likely go through the same cycle. As such, it might not be a month from now, but more like around Fall.

Otherwise, I agree with your point.

[geldonyetich]

Ah, but look at the bright side of that, this way you can see active subscriptions per country based on expansion box sales.

[SnakeCharmer]

Obscure question (slight thread derail):

How much of WoW's popularity could be attributed to Leroy Jenkins?




I was pondering sub numbers and such and began to wonder.  So I pulled up mmorpgchart.com and looked.  In May-June '05, WoW's sub numbers skyrocketed from 2 mil to 3.25ish million.  I googled Leroy Jenkins and found that the videos were May '05.

I'm sure someone has asked this question before, so if it's been answered or pondered, just ignore this.

[Venkman]

Most of the jump was from China and other APAC nations. China alone accounts for, I think, 40% of all subscriptions. This is notable for two main reasons:

• Almost no other Western-brewed MMO has succeeded in China
• To operate in China they needed to use Chinese-based operator. This operator (The9) operates WoW entirely, paying a royalty to VUG. So that's not 3.5mil * 14.99/mo in China. I have no idea what it is, and it still is buckets of cash no matter how you measure it, but it's why you can't say "8.5mil * 14.99" and comes up with oil tanks full of cash. Just buckets :)

Leroy Jenkins was a cute little event that helped wrap WoW with some mass relevance. But it was already steamrolling into the public's mind (or at least the media) based entirely on its success.

[Trippy]

Most of the jump was from China and other APAC nations. China alone accounts for, I think, 40% of all subscriptions. This is notable for two main reasons:

China was at 3.5 million out of 8 million in January.

• Almost no other Western-brewed MMO has succeeded in China
• To operate in China they needed to use Chinese-based operator. This operator (The9) operates WoW entirely, paying a royalty to VUG. So that's not 3.5mil * 14.99/mo in China. I have no idea what it is, and it still is buckets of cash no matter how you measure it, but it's why you can't say "8.5mil * 14.99" and comes up with oil tanks full of cash. Just buckets :)

Vivendi ain't getting much from The9 hence the rumors about Vivendi wanting to renegotiate it before the release of BC in China. You can read The9's financial details for the gory details about their royalty arrangement (it's kind of complicated).

[Azazel]

I agree Morat and Shiz. Heroic slider is an easy win, and you don't want to mess with the old world stuff too much because of the low barrier. They could easily make sweeping changes in content, but as long as they continue to scale to what can be provided by drops and questions along the way, they're fine. They absolutely shouldn't tune the old world for the powers players gained in the new one, including all the new talents that happen through many tiers.

No, they absolutely do need to retune the old world. Remember how Strat was changed from 10-man to 5? BRS from 15 to 10? And who ran those instances? Especially after the changes? Level 60's for the most part. Dire Maul and Scholo pretty much fit the same mold, as do ZG/MC/AQ20..

Now, almost all of the drops from both of those places are utter shit compared to the opening no-danger quests in BC where you have to walk 25 feet over and say hello to some guy and get a reward that's a tier 1+ breastplate. Which you can do at level 58.

Those instances need to either be tuned down to the level of Maraudon or BRD at most, or completely rejigged to match the reward level seen in BC in a place like Ramparts etc so they can still fit into an active world. of warcraft. Because as they stand now there's simply no point to them for the effort involved.

It's like raiding TOV nowadays in Everquest. A bit of fun occasionally for some, but poinless for upgrades and consequently deserted.

[Venkman]

Actually, I was talking about the public space stuff. The 0.5 stuff was retuned because of the relative power of players, to up what they dropped and to decrease how many could go there to make it a challenge. The outside world there, the one where players could solo 1-60 and exist on quests and drops alone, has largely remained unchanged.

They could retune that stuff, but then the leap from Azeroth to Outland in terms of gear wouldn't be so shocking. And man is it shocking for those not in Tier 2 stuff. I didn't realize it'd be so soon I'd be eyeing green gear to replace my MC (Tier 1) stuff. But that big jump is part of the compulsion to buy BC, which sells boxes.

Tuning the old world public space is something you do for free between expansions, when you see lots of players playing alts instead of farming whatever at the level cap.

So we agree, basically. They'll eventually need to tune, but right now is not the time. Either they'll make those places level 70 appropriate, tune them for twinked level 55+, or, err, make them ghost towns like 80% of EQ1's zones. WoW is headed down that path. More is more after all, and yet each server can still only suppoirt the same concurrency. So unless they sell an expansion that rejiggers the old world, there will be ever-growing numbers of ghost zones.

[rk47]

Obscure question (slight thread derail):

How much of WoW's popularity could be attributed to Leroy Jenkins?




I was pondering sub numbers and such and began to wonder.  So I pulled up mmorpgchart.com and looked.  In May-June '05, WoW's sub numbers skyrocketed from 2 mil to 3.25ish million.  I googled Leroy Jenkins and found that the videos were May '05.

I'm sure someone has asked this question before, so if it's been answered or pondered, just ignore this.

lol leeroy 'could' be percieved as a good marketing tool to Blizzard. I was in his guild once and he got a special pass to attend Blizzard's gameshow or something. And I've heard recently that the latest card game include him on it as well. So I can see how Blizzard liked to use him as publicity while giving him minor perks in real life not amounting to any substantial monetary amount.

[Azazel]

Tuning the old world public space is something you do for free between expansions, when you see lots of players playing alts instead of farming whatever at the level cap.

So we agree, basically. They'll eventually need to tune, but right now is not the time. Either they'll make those places level 70 appropriate, tune them for twinked level 55+, or, err, make them ghost towns like 80% of EQ1's zones.

oh shit no, I wasn't saying that they should do it now (from a business perspective) or that they would do it now (from a let's get real!) perspective. I entirely meant it as a "down the track" thing, in order to tune and make a half-dozen instances relevent again. My thinking was they they'll just need to rejig some mobs and loot in them and suddenly you'll have a half-dozen instances that fit into the dungeon progression again (either at low-50's or late 50's-low60's) instead of half a dozen instances that just got nuked from orbit. But it won't happen for months, at a minimum.

[Falconeer]

And I've heard recently that the latest card game include him on it as well. So I can see how Blizzard liked to use him as publicity while giving him minor perks in real life not amounting to any substantial monetary amount.

Leeroy is possibly the rarest (save maybe for the 3 loot ones) card of the first set of 361. That says it all.

[Koyasha]

It's like raiding TOV nowadays in Everquest. A bit of fun occasionally for some, but poinless for upgrades and consequently deserted.

This is an interesting comparison to make, because the level of loot power jump between World of Warcraft and Burning Crusade is bigger than anything EQ has ever experienced, including Omens of War, Depths of Darkhollow and Prophecy of Ro, all of which brought a pretty big jump in loot power for casuals, as well as the Serpent's Spine.

So far, no expansion in EQ has had easily obtainable casual gear make obsolete the raid drops of the previous expansion.  Quite often, even the raid drops of 2 expansions ago are still superior to the best obtainable casual gear.  The new gear was better, yes...but it never made raiders feel like they wasted their time raiding in the previous expansion, and it never made previous expansion higher-end content obsolete until an expansion or two later.  If we look at EQ's history...Kunark brought superior gear to Hate and Fear, as well as 10 more levels, and it was EQ's first expansion, so it could perhaps be most directly compared to the situation in Burning Crusade.  There was a huge leap in power for gear between old world and Kunark, and a lot of drops from named in various dungeons were made obsolete by superior spawns of similar level range in Kunark.  However, none of the drops from Kunark that could be easily one-grouped were enough to obsolete gear from Hate and Fear.

The Temple of Veeshan that you mention was not made obsolete with Shadows of Luclin, the single-group gear from Luclin was superior to single-group Velious content, but it wasn't better than raid content.  Only when Planes of Power came along, ramped up levels by 5 and gear by a lot more was Velious made mostly irrelevant.  Even then, drops from Vulak'Aerr could be compared to some of the lower-end raid gear from Planes of Power.  Velious was made irrelevant by the 5 level increase, because that increase in levels made Luclin content much easier.  And while many people skipped Vex Thal to go straight to Planes of Power, a lot didn't.  Vex Thal remained relevant for some time.  The same trend continues throughout EQ's history, in fact, the Plane of Time remained the standard by which loot was gauged for years, considered the point of division between lesser and greater loot.  Last year when I last played EQ, the Plane of Time was finally becoming irrelevant, but consider that it was EQ's 4th expansion out of....I think it was 11 at that point.

Burning Crusade, on the other hand, seems to be trying to obsolete all old raid content as fast as possible.  Single group content is not only obsoleted by new single group content, it is obsoleted by solo content.  Lower tier raid loot is obsoleted by the same solo content.  All of this says not only to raiders, but to every casual player that spent their one play night a week taking 5 hours to put together a group and run Scholomance/Stratholme/UBRS/Dire Maul that every bit of work they did is entirely worthless.

I have no idea or speculation on what all this will add up to, though.  It's a vast amount of old content made worthless and an unimaginably vast amount of effort on behalf of millions of players made worthless.  The basic idea is 'you may as well have gotten to 60 and quit playing until Burning Crusade'.  Because I, with a new character rolled on a new server and rushed to 60 before Burning Crusade, walked into Outland wearing level 40ish gear and less than a day later had changed almost my entire wardrobe by doing quests that I could solo, at 60, with level 40ish gear.  And my new wardrobe is superior to anything I could have gotten in the old dungeons, and a couple pieces are superior to low-tier raid loot.