I really don't think that is it at all. You overestimate how many people will leave WoW. There have been other games where people have made the same predictions and yet WoW continues on its path of total domination. ToR will be no different to WoW than Warhammer, Conan, Rift or (insert imaginary WoW killer name here) was.
Domination must have a different meaning to people than what it means to me! Let’s see WOW has lost almost a million people out of the 4.5 million that was playing WoW in Europe and North America.
Yep that speaks of domination to me after all the consistent increase in numbers across the board over everyone else. What you mean WoW has declined in numbers over the last year; I mean the domination of the Asian Market that continues to increase in numbers!
I played WOW for a few days back in 2006. It is so nice to see that the graphics are still as catoony and sickening as before. So nice to see that the game offer nothing new to the MMO genre still and is solely responsible for diverting the MMO genre from new and more interesting play styles. so nice that do to WOW we end up with endless WOW clones (WOW clones that are clones of EQ I might add)
Arghhhhhhh !!!!
Does no one else see how bad this game is?!! No one see how it has ruined MMO development?!! How can so many people play this shite ?!!!
Any now they added another generic fantasy element - the monk with an oriental style to the zone..... FFS.
I played WOW for a few days back in 2006. It is so nice to see that the graphics are still as catoony and sickening as before. So nice to see that the game offer nothing new to the MMO genre still and is solely responsible for diverting the MMO genre from new and more interesting play styles. so nice that do to WOW we end up with endless WOW clones (WOW clones that are clones of EQ I might add)
Arghhhhhhh !!!!
Does no one else see how bad this game is?!! No one see how it has ruined MMO development?!! How can so many people play this shite ?!!!
Any now they added another generic fantasy element - the monk with an oriental style to the zone..... FFS.
Having Panda's as an optional playable race... okay.
Having an entire expansion revolve around them... wtf.
Underwhelming. Honestly.
Cute. Funny. Sure. I get it. I do.
But what about the folks that wanted something 'above' and 'beyond'... further character development and a deeper, more meaningful direction for the characters that we've been playing for 7 years?
The views of the 'vocal' don't necessarily reflect the views of the 'masses' or the 'majority'. Understood. But for those players that want something more for our characters... aside from another RAID boss to fight OR another arena season to go through... what is there?
You obviously dont get it if you think it was done to be cute and funny. Was a race of cow men supposed to be cute and funny? Space goats?
You are right though that it looks like once again it will lack any meaningful progression.
I really don't think that is it at all. You overestimate how many people will leave WoW. There have been other games where people have made the same predictions and yet WoW continues on its path of total domination. ToR will be no different to WoW than Warhammer, Conan, Rift or (insert imaginary WoW killer name here) was.
Domination must have a different meaning to people than what it means to me! Let’s see WOW has lost almost a million people out of the 4.5 million that was playing WoW in Europe and North America.
Yep that speaks of domination to me after all the consistent increase in numbers across the board over everyone else. What you mean WoW has declined in numbers over the last year; I mean the domination of the Asian Market that continues to increase in numbers!
WoW still lost a lower % of people since January as Rift. You can add up all the other AAA MMOs player bases and you still wouldnt have WoW's numbers. That IS domination.
Its age is catching up to it finally, but its still the dominant force and that is very unlikely to change in december.
Having Panda's as an optional playable race... okay.
Having an entire expansion revolve around them... wtf.
Underwhelming. Honestly.
Cute. Funny. Sure. I get it. I do.
But what about the folks that wanted something 'above' and 'beyond'... further character development and a deeper, more meaningful direction for the characters that we've been playing for 7 years?
The views of the 'vocal' don't necessarily reflect the views of the 'masses' or the 'majority'. Understood. But for those players that want something more for our characters... aside from another RAID boss to fight OR another arena season to go through... what is there?
GW2? <Evil Grin> As long as WoW is making Blizzard HUGE amounts of money, and they keep Ghostcrawler running things, little of substance will really change. They have MORE than enough money and talent/experience to take the game in any direction that they wish to at this point. But its easier to just go with the flow, and let Ghostcrawler keep playing his little games.
Blizzard LONG ago made back their investment on WoW, and anything after that is gravy. They have no real incentive to take a radical direction with WoW. In fact, most of their player base seems to be at least content with the same old, same old. So, if its not broke, why fix it? As long as millions keep their subs up, and keep buying each expansion, all is well in WoW land.
Name one game that is remotely like EQ1. Even Vanguard isnt that much like it, though its probably the closest. Non linear, non quest based leveling. Intricate grouping dynamics requiring more than just tank, heals dps. A real sense of danger. 54 man raids. Tough regular mobs. Huge, non instanced dungeons. Challenging, rewarding.
Nothing released since is like EQ1. WoW is as different form EQ1 as you can get and still be an MMORPG.
I still say it's a way for them to scale back their dev-investment. If they are able to lower what is needed then they can shift resources to Titan while keeping their moneypot open for business.
lol I swear I'm not being sarcastic or snarky... I'm just wondering how we go from Cataclysms... to Kung Fu Pandas...
Believe me; we all thought the panderan were going to be the 'burning crusade' expansion back in vanilla. If only this expansions made Ethereal a playable race ;].
What shocks me is just one race? Maybe it's just the first race.. I don't follow WoW anymore. 'm clueless.
Originally posted by Quesa
I still say it's a way for them to scale back their dev-investment. If they are able to lower what is needed then they can shift resources to Titan while keeping their moneypot open for business.
I still say it's a way for them to scale back their dev-investment. If they are able to lower what is needed then they can shift resources to Titan while keeping their moneypot open for business.
Well the expansion cycle seems to be at least 6 months shorter this time around and the art team at least has been very busy. And with the pokemon system, scenarios, new BG types they are adding quite a bit with this expansion. Id say they are working at least as hard as past expansions. The ideas just arent as good IMO The work on WoW though has never been remotely proportional to the income goingin. SoE generally works harder on EQ2 than Blizzard does on WoW and they obviously have a much smaller income.
The response to why there is no player housing in particular: They said osmething along the lines of its expnesive to do, wouldnt you rathe rhave more raids and dungeons? Um...hire more staff? Your game still makes insane amounts of money, and still owuld if you lose half your customers. Not having guild halls at least is an absolute disgrace with the amount of resources they have.
I am thinking here that the artwork may be getting a little near to the Kung-Fu Panda movie that Paramount/Viacom did.
Scary how the suits who run Blizzard have stolen the idea of martial arts Panda. Clearly the look and feel are similar and aimed at childrens market. Yeash...I will be staying away from future Blizzard expansions based on this one (I am an adult gamer).
I still say it's a way for them to scale back their dev-investment. If they are able to lower what is needed then they can shift resources to Titan while keeping their moneypot open for business.
Well the expansion cycle seems to be at least 6 months shorter this time around and the art team at least has been very busy. And with the pokemon system, scenarios, new BG types they are adding quite a bit with this expansion. Id say they are working at least as hard as past expansions. The ideas just arent as good IMO The work on WoW though has never been remotely proportional to the income goingin. SoE generally works harder on EQ2 than Blizzard does on WoW and they obviously have a much smaller income.
The response to why there is no player housing in particular: They said osmething along the lines of its expnesive to do, wouldnt you rathe rhave more raids and dungeons? Um...hire more staff? Your game still makes insane amounts of money, and still owuld if you lose half your customers. Not having guild halls at least is an absolute disgrace with the amount of resources they have.
Except that beyond all the new content, the balancing rollercoaster after an expansion is a huge time-burden for the development team. We've seen that in all expansions.
With the complete neutering of the talent system (again) it will be far easier to tweak individual abilities and not have to worry as much about the 4-5 talents that affect or added effects to that spell. They are also reducing the total amount of abilities for the classes to some magic number.
I still say it's a way for them to scale back their dev-investment. If they are able to lower what is needed then they can shift resources to Titan while keeping their moneypot open for business.
Well the expansion cycle seems to be at least 6 months shorter this time around and the art team at least has been very busy. And with the pokemon system, scenarios, new BG types they are adding quite a bit with this expansion. Id say they are working at least as hard as past expansions. The ideas just arent as good IMO The work on WoW though has never been remotely proportional to the income goingin. SoE generally works harder on EQ2 than Blizzard does on WoW and they obviously have a much smaller income.
The response to why there is no player housing in particular: They said osmething along the lines of its expnesive to do, wouldnt you rathe rhave more raids and dungeons? Um...hire more staff? Your game still makes insane amounts of money, and still owuld if you lose half your customers. Not having guild halls at least is an absolute disgrace with the amount of resources they have.
In these types of situations, its usually all about the bottom line. ALL the suits care about is making the quarterly report look SO SWEET!!... Hiring new staff costs money. Its a lot easier on the quarterly report to justify keeping the status quo for as long as the money keeps rolling in. They have no real incentive to invest in more staff, or additional expenses. The suits major focus is on making themselves look good (promotion) and laying the ground work for sufficient CYA so that any blame doesn't get dropped on their door step, if/when the shit hits the fan.
Except that beyond all the new content, the balancing rollercoaster after an expansion is a huge time-burden for the development team. We've seen that in all expansions.
With the complete neutering of the talent system (again) it will be far easier to tweak individual abilities and not have to worry as much about the 4-5 talents that affect or added effects to that spell. They are also reducing the total amount of abilities for the classes to some magic number.
If they wanted to make it easier on themselves they could have just left the system as is and award no new points, and just added a choice of 3 options at 90 and called it a day. the new system really has very little effect on PvE because the specs will have roughly the identical abilities as they did in wrath.
PvP it might cause them headaches, because thats what this talent sytem is mostly for.
The thing is just a bad decision, doesnt really save them any work, and doesnt give the players what they want.
I am thinking here that the artwork may be getting a little near to the Kung-Fu Panda movie that Paramount/Viacom did.
Scary how the suits who run Blizzard have stolen the idea of martial arts Panda. Clearly the look and feel are similar and aimed at childrens market. Yeash...I will be staying away from future Blizzard expansions based on this one (I am an adult gamer).
Because Pandaren monks didnt predate Kung Fu panda or anything. Maybe Blizzard stole the idea from Blizzard?
Or maybe its the animal that most represents a region and a style of fighting that most represents a region? No, it OBVIOUSLY came from a movie...
I am thinking here that the artwork may be getting a little near to the Kung-Fu Panda movie that Paramount/Viacom did.
Scary how the suits who run Blizzard have stolen the idea of martial arts Panda. Clearly the look and feel are similar and aimed at childrens market. Yeash...I will be staying away from future Blizzard expansions based on this one (I am an adult gamer).
Because Pandaren monks didnt predate Kung Fu panda or anything. Maybe Blizzard stole the idea from Blizzard?
Or maybe its the animal that most represents a region and a style of fighting that most represents a region? No, it OBVIOUSLY came from a movie...
This, a thousand times this!
Plus, Those of you playing WoW as a serious high fantasy game are NUTS!
Domination must have a different meaning to people than what it means to me! Let’s see WOW has lost almost a million people out of the 4.5 million that was playing WoW in Europe and North America.
Yep that speaks of domination to me after all the consistent increase in numbers across the board over everyone else. What you mean WoW has declined in numbers over the last year; I mean the domination of the Asian Market that continues to increase in numbers!
: exercise of preponderant, governing, or controlling influence
This sums up the role that WoW plays in this genre. Time for you to change your definiton.
As far as your links go this is the line that really stuck out to me...
"Activision Blizzard's earning call was today and we learned, among other things, that the WoW playerbase is down to 11.4M players."
After that they lost another 300k players. They lost more than most MMORPG's have and still they dominate.
I dont like WoW. It's not my kind of game. However, they do rule this genre. Every developer wants a piece of what they have. To deny this is just foolish. In time it may change but as of right now Blizzard is King.
Blizzard will make it work, and the new class and talent system as well as wow-pokemon battles WILL be good changes/additions...
... but seriously people... after YEARS of playing this game, isn't it time you realise its aimed at children primarily, with raiding and lore for adults... so your game is going back to its roots with Factional conflict and a fun new continent that isnt all about death and demonic incursions... fantasy to a lot of people is Goldshire/Crystalsong type places.
Maybe its time you grow up/find another game - but if you can get in gear with this (when its out as opposed to focing yourself now, considering we have crappy information on the expansion beyond starting zone) then do so.. and you'll continue to play wow for times to come.
I am thinking here that the artwork may be getting a little near to the Kung-Fu Panda movie that Paramount/Viacom did.
Scary how the suits who run Blizzard have stolen the idea of martial arts Panda. Clearly the look and feel are similar and aimed at childrens market. Yeash...I will be staying away from future Blizzard expansions based on this one (I am an adult gamer).
Because Pandaren monks didnt predate Kung Fu panda or anything. Maybe Blizzard stole the idea from Blizzard?
Or maybe its the animal that most represents a region and a style of fighting that most represents a region? No, it OBVIOUSLY came from a movie...
This, a thousand times this!
Plus, Those of you playing WoW as a serious high fantasy game are NUTS!
This game is CLEARLY a SATIRE of high fantasy.
It is Kung-Fu Panda reworked into the Blizzard low brow lets please everyone and especially the kids fantasy. I mean, common, just look at it...
I can't imagine adults play WOW as a main MMO, unless they have some mental problems.
I don't think they do anymore either. The buisness suits who run Blizz have probably done some market research showing that the under 16 market is where they have the best numbers now. That explain the Kung-Fu Panda expansion.
Comments
Domination must have a different meaning to people than what it means to me! Let’s see WOW has lost almost a million people out of the 4.5 million that was playing WoW in Europe and North America.
Yep that speaks of domination to me after all the consistent increase in numbers across the board over everyone else. What you mean WoW has declined in numbers over the last year; I mean the domination of the Asian Market that continues to increase in numbers!
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2293-WoW-Loses-600k-Subscribers-Diablo-3-Beta-Q3-2011-Arena-Passe-Blue-Posts
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2400-WoW-Lost-300k-Subscribers-Patch-4.3-this-year-Blizzcon-2011-Tickets-Blue-Posts
I played WOW for a few days back in 2006. It is so nice to see that the graphics are still as catoony and sickening as before. So nice to see that the game offer nothing new to the MMO genre still and is solely responsible for diverting the MMO genre from new and more interesting play styles. so nice that do to WOW we end up with endless WOW clones (WOW clones that are clones of EQ I might add)
Arghhhhhhh !!!!
Does no one else see how bad this game is?!! No one see how it has ruined MMO development?!! How can so many people play this shite ?!!!
Any now they added another generic fantasy element - the monk with an oriental style to the zone..... FFS.
/facepalm
You obviously dont get it if you think it was done to be cute and funny. Was a race of cow men supposed to be cute and funny? Space goats?
You are right though that it looks like once again it will lack any meaningful progression.
WoW still lost a lower % of people since January as Rift. You can add up all the other AAA MMOs player bases and you still wouldnt have WoW's numbers. That IS domination.
Its age is catching up to it finally, but its still the dominant force and that is very unlikely to change in december.
GW2? <Evil Grin> As long as WoW is making Blizzard HUGE amounts of money, and they keep Ghostcrawler running things, little of substance will really change. They have MORE than enough money and talent/experience to take the game in any direction that they wish to at this point. But its easier to just go with the flow, and let Ghostcrawler keep playing his little games.
Blizzard LONG ago made back their investment on WoW, and anything after that is gravy. They have no real incentive to take a radical direction with WoW. In fact, most of their player base seems to be at least content with the same old, same old. So, if its not broke, why fix it? As long as millions keep their subs up, and keep buying each expansion, all is well in WoW land.
Name one game that is remotely like EQ1. Even Vanguard isnt that much like it, though its probably the closest. Non linear, non quest based leveling. Intricate grouping dynamics requiring more than just tank, heals dps. A real sense of danger. 54 man raids. Tough regular mobs. Huge, non instanced dungeons. Challenging, rewarding.
Nothing released since is like EQ1. WoW is as different form EQ1 as you can get and still be an MMORPG.
I still say it's a way for them to scale back their dev-investment. If they are able to lower what is needed then they can shift resources to Titan while keeping their moneypot open for business.
Believe me; we all thought the panderan were going to be the 'burning crusade' expansion back in vanilla. If only this expansions made Ethereal a playable race ;].
What shocks me is just one race? Maybe it's just the first race.. I don't follow WoW anymore. 'm clueless.
I thought titan was going to be a social MMO?
Played - M59, EQOA, EQ, EQ2, PS, SWG[Favorite], DAoC, UO, RS, MXO, CoH/CoV, TR, FFXI, FoM, WoW, Eve, Rift, SWTOR, TSW.
Playing - PS2, AoW, GW2
Well the expansion cycle seems to be at least 6 months shorter this time around and the art team at least has been very busy. And with the pokemon system, scenarios, new BG types they are adding quite a bit with this expansion. Id say they are working at least as hard as past expansions. The ideas just arent as good IMO The work on WoW though has never been remotely proportional to the income goingin. SoE generally works harder on EQ2 than Blizzard does on WoW and they obviously have a much smaller income.
The response to why there is no player housing in particular: They said osmething along the lines of its expnesive to do, wouldnt you rathe rhave more raids and dungeons? Um...hire more staff? Your game still makes insane amounts of money, and still owuld if you lose half your customers. Not having guild halls at least is an absolute disgrace with the amount of resources they have.
I am thinking here that the artwork may be getting a little near to the Kung-Fu Panda movie that Paramount/Viacom did.
Scary how the suits who run Blizzard have stolen the idea of martial arts Panda. Clearly the look and feel are similar and aimed at childrens market. Yeash...I will be staying away from future Blizzard expansions based on this one (I am an adult gamer).
Except that beyond all the new content, the balancing rollercoaster after an expansion is a huge time-burden for the development team. We've seen that in all expansions.
With the complete neutering of the talent system (again) it will be far easier to tweak individual abilities and not have to worry as much about the 4-5 talents that affect or added effects to that spell. They are also reducing the total amount of abilities for the classes to some magic number.
In these types of situations, its usually all about the bottom line. ALL the suits care about is making the quarterly report look SO SWEET!!... Hiring new staff costs money. Its a lot easier on the quarterly report to justify keeping the status quo for as long as the money keeps rolling in. They have no real incentive to invest in more staff, or additional expenses. The suits major focus is on making themselves look good (promotion) and laying the ground work for sufficient CYA so that any blame doesn't get dropped on their door step, if/when the shit hits the fan.
If they wanted to make it easier on themselves they could have just left the system as is and award no new points, and just added a choice of 3 options at 90 and called it a day. the new system really has very little effect on PvE because the specs will have roughly the identical abilities as they did in wrath.
PvP it might cause them headaches, because thats what this talent sytem is mostly for.
The thing is just a bad decision, doesnt really save them any work, and doesnt give the players what they want.
Because Pandaren monks didnt predate Kung Fu panda or anything. Maybe Blizzard stole the idea from Blizzard?
Or maybe its the animal that most represents a region and a style of fighting that most represents a region? No, it OBVIOUSLY came from a movie...
You're just looking at the surface. There is much more that goes into balancing than you seem to understand.
its the first time i got an urge to try out wow. the expansion looks plain fun. panda monks. i'm in!
This, a thousand times this!
Plus, Those of you playing WoW as a serious high fantasy game are NUTS!
This game is CLEARLY a SATIRE of high fantasy.
This
Definition of DOMINATION
1
: supremacy or preeminence over another
2
: exercise of mastery or ruling power
3
: exercise of preponderant, governing, or controlling influence
This sums up the role that WoW plays in this genre. Time for you to change your definiton.
As far as your links go this is the line that really stuck out to me...
"Activision Blizzard's earning call was today and we learned, among other things, that the WoW playerbase is down to 11.4M players."
After that they lost another 300k players. They lost more than most MMORPG's have and still they dominate.
I dont like WoW. It's not my kind of game. However, they do rule this genre. Every developer wants a piece of what they have. To deny this is just foolish. In time it may change but as of right now Blizzard is King.
Blizzard will make it work, and the new class and talent system as well as wow-pokemon battles WILL be good changes/additions...
... but seriously people... after YEARS of playing this game, isn't it time you realise its aimed at children primarily, with raiding and lore for adults... so your game is going back to its roots with Factional conflict and a fun new continent that isnt all about death and demonic incursions... fantasy to a lot of people is Goldshire/Crystalsong type places.
Maybe its time you grow up/find another game - but if you can get in gear with this (when its out as opposed to focing yourself now, considering we have crappy information on the expansion beyond starting zone) then do so.. and you'll continue to play wow for times to come.
It is Kung-Fu Panda reworked into the Blizzard low brow lets please everyone and especially the kids fantasy. I mean, common, just look at it...
and where Blizz are coming from
I can't imagine adults play WOW as a main MMO, unless they have some mental problems.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I don't think they do anymore either. The buisness suits who run Blizz have probably done some market research showing that the under 16 market is where they have the best numbers now. That explain the Kung-Fu Panda expansion.
Swtor has nothing to worry about.... Blizzard just killed wow themeselves!