World of Warcraft

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Originally posted by Azrile

 
Actually he is mostly right.  Blizzard said their plan was to make an expansion every 12Months.  Obviously, being Blizzard that is 18 months :)
The news about WOW and Battlenet merging has already been mentioned before.  it's a smart move by Blizzard to market all their games to their players.
All I have to say about the propaganda is to look at the numbers.  Blizzard in the last two weeks has launched about 10 new servers in NA and EU.    Warhammer, which is 2 months old is merging almost 50% of their servers and AOC is looking like they will be down to 4-6 servers in a month or two.
Wait until the sales numbers come out for the first 24hrs of Wrath.    probably about 3.5M copies in NA and EU in ONE day.  that is more people so anxious to playthe new expansion that they bought it the very first day.  that is more subscribers than EVERY other p2p game in NA and EU combined.   And that doesn't include Asia.
Here is a neat trick.. go to the wow main page and scroll down the realm status page.   About 50% of them are 'full' during primetime and have queues.    Compare that to Warhammer where people use the word 'ghostown' more and more frequently.
AOC was propaganda at launch,  Warhammer was propaganda at Launch.    Wrath's huge success is all about people who actually have played the game for the past years wanting more of that game.  People would not be this anxious to buy the expansion if they didn't like the game so much.

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I am patiently waiting for a MASSIVE zerg posts of "WotLK is the same old crappy WoW, nothing has changed!" type of posts. I will be generous and will give 1-1.5 months for that. I will check back these forums 1.5 months later to prove my point: 8/10 of all posts will be as I said.
<Mod edit>

I figured after all of the server problems earlier in the week, that there would be problems with the release, but I was wrong.  Played  last night, and played for most of the day today, with only one CTD due to server lag.  I attempted to log in around 9pm EST, but there was a 2hr+que on my main server, so I created an alt to mess around for a bit.  The server was definitely lagging, but nothing unplayable.  I give kudos to blizz for the flawless release so far.  I hope I can log in early tomorrow and not worry about any ques/lag until the evening, which doesn't matter really because I work nights.  Still, there will probably be much qqing about que times, and server lag this weekend due to all their servers being seriously stressed, but as long as things are playable, blizz did a great job in my book.

*edit* also just saw that someone posted that 50% of warhammer's servers were merging due to low pop, which is BS.  I still subscribe to WAR, even though I've been playing WoW recently (OMG! Blasphemy!) and I've logged into WAR all this week, my server was high/medium to high/high during prime time, while the majority of the other servers were medium.  I enjoy warhammer pvp immensely more then WoWs.. actually, Wednesday night I had a great time doing open rvr for about 4 hours in T3.. It was easily over 50vs50 for the whole time, assaulting/defending a keep in avelorn.  Never understood the fanboism thinking that if you like one game, you must HATE it's competitors...

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Originally posted by Xtort 
<Mod edit>

I am patiently waiting for a MASSIVE zerg posts of "WotLK is the same old crappy WoW, nothing has changed!" type of posts. I will be generous and will give 1-1.5 months for that. I will check back these forums 1.5 months later to prove my point: 8/10 of all posts will be as I said.
<Mod edit>

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Warhammer had ques a few weeks ago and is now merging servers. Just think about how bad things have to be for a game to swing so drastically between such distances. From being to full with login ques and splitting servers due to over population and then just a couple weeks later having to move people off servers due to lacking populations. By rough count on the news listed on the game launcher today, it looks like they are moving people off of 27 out of 55 servers in NA/Oceanic server listing. Pretty close to half.

If WoW ends up in the same boat in the next few weeks I will appologize and take you out for a steak dinner.

Originally posted by Lord_Ixigan

Originally posted by Recant

The DK starting area is really excellent, and Northrend - from what I've seen so far, has been quite impressive - especially the geography of the land.  It feels like they've actually put to good use the money they've been making from us.

Personally my favourite thing is seeing my friends back in game again, after we all took breaks etc, we were getting bored waiting for the expansion.  Northrend feels more consistent and epic than Outland, and I prefer the more traditional scenery.

I still haven't levelled past 70, it takes quite a lot of exp to gain a level, which is good because there is a LOT of content for each level.  Ran Utgarde keep a couple of times already, nothing particularly challenging though - though we're all in high end raid epics from TBC :p

It's kind of premature to say, but I think WOTLK will be the peak of the game, much like Velious was the peak of Everquest, being the 2nd expansion of that game.  Actually there are a lot of similarities between Velious and Northrend - lots of ice, dwarves, dragons, giants, huge bridges :p

So I figure I'm going to make the most of WoW now before it begins its slowly downward decline.  By the time the next expansion comes around, we might actually have another game that comes close to the quality and fun factor.  I guess Blizzard can go back to working on D3 and SC2 now as well :p

 

 

Pretty sure Blizzard has said they don't have plans to make more expansions for WoW. They realize that it's already become dated and in about 6 months to a year will likely become an antique (a still very popular antique of course).

Blizzard is smart enough to realize that the next expansion they would make would have to upgrade their engine and graphics design in a pretty big way. I'm not convinced they'll be willing to do that on an existing title. If anything I would expect to see either a sort of "WoW 2" (lame idea imho) or a Starcraft Online.

Not saying WoW will be going anywhere anytime soon, but I just wouldn't expect another expansion on it.

Emerald dream could be an X-pac. They could add Undermine. They could add the Nether or whatever it's called.

Originally posted by bodypass

The next expansion is already being worked on.

Planned launch date around May 1 in 2010 - but of course only when ready. With free big patches for WotLK in May and November of 2009 (those last two dates are already scheduled if you followed the WOW schedules from the last 18 months).

Don't expect any new MMORPG with the same quality before that date btw, because no one has the money and Blizzard just keeps raising the standards.

Those who log in to see the starting zones of Northrend understand what I mean... Wow will be here in 10 years time (not even in the same time frame, but it will still be called Wow).

Expect a merge of Battlenet and Wow subs also beginning in the next year already. Making for a 20 million target audiance (SC2 and Diablo3) in 2010.

In view of these corporate plans, this Wow can only be considered the beginning of something multiple times bigger. Indeed that big.

Khy khy quality, yes sure, popular not always mean quality. Dont get me wrong i hawe good times with wow for few yers but wow is eating its own tail with each new expansion. And its one of many riddles in this world why this title is so popular.

Originally posted by wilq

Originally posted by bodypass

The next expansion is already being worked on.

Planned launch date around May 1 in 2010 - but of course only when ready. With free big patches for WotLK in May and November of 2009 (those last two dates are already scheduled if you followed the WOW schedules from the last 18 months).

Don't expect any new MMORPG with the same quality before that date btw, because no one has the money and Blizzard just keeps raising the standards.

Those who log in to see the starting zones of Northrend understand what I mean... Wow will be here in 10 years time (not even in the same time frame, but it will still be called Wow).

Expect a merge of Battlenet and Wow subs also beginning in the next year already. Making for a 20 million target audiance (SC2 and Diablo3) in 2010.

In view of these corporate plans, this Wow can only be considered the beginning of something multiple times bigger. Indeed that big.

Khy khy quality, yes sure, popular not always mean quality. Dont get me wrong i hawe good times with wow for few yers but wow is eating its own tail with each new expansion. And its one of many riddles in this world why this title is so popular.

I'd LOVE to see you elaborate on the part italicized and underlined.

Originally posted by Aeroangel

Originally posted by wilq

Khy khy quality, yes sure, popular not always mean quality. Dont get me wrong i hawe good times with wow for few yers but wow is eating its own tail with each new expansion. And its one of many riddles in this world why this title is so popular.

 

I'd LOVE to see you elaborate on the part italicized and underlined.

He can't, otherwise he would have already.

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Originally posted by Xtort

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Originally posted by Azrile

 
Actually he is mostly right.  Blizzard said their plan was to make an expansion every 12Months.  Obviously, being Blizzard that is 18 months :)
The news about WOW and Battlenet merging has already been mentioned before.  it's a smart move by Blizzard to market all their games to their players.
All I have to say about the propaganda is to look at the numbers.  Blizzard in the last two weeks has launched about 10 new servers in NA and EU.    Warhammer, which is 2 months old is merging almost 50% of their servers and AOC is looking like they will be down to 4-6 servers in a month or two.
Wait until the sales numbers come out for the first 24hrs of Wrath.    probably about 3.5M copies in NA and EU in ONE day.  that is more people so anxious to playthe new expansion that they bought it the very first day.  that is more subscribers than EVERY other p2p game in NA and EU combined.   And that doesn't include Asia.
Here is a neat trick.. go to the wow main page and scroll down the realm status page.   About 50% of them are 'full' during primetime and have queues.    Compare that to Warhammer where people use the word 'ghostown' more and more frequently.
AOC was propaganda at launch,  Warhammer was propaganda at Launch.    Wrath's huge success is all about people who actually have played the game for the past years wanting more of that game.  People would not be this anxious to buy the expansion if they didn't like the game so much.

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<Mod edit>

I am patiently waiting for a MASSIVE zerg posts of "WotLK is the same old crappy WoW, nothing has changed!" type of posts. I will be generous and will give 1-1.5 months for that. I will check back these forums 1.5 months later to prove my point: 8/10 of all posts will be as I said.
<Mod edit>

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One thing will be sure though: within 2 months Blizzard will NOT merge servers like War had to do after 6 weeks.
In fact Blizzard had their total server numbers raised for 4 years straight now.

As on topic: WOTLK is indeed a step further. I epxected this, because the post TBC patches already proved Blizzard has the game in a ferm grip these days.

They know exactly what to do with this game. Patch 2.3 was the turning point for me. It was the butt - hinge that opened the game to its present form. You should try it Xtort. At least I tried AoC and War.