To count as a subscription the player needed to have played in the last month in China, not 3 months.
I don't see the Chinese system as an advantage over the western (fixed) price subscription either.
It is like most of our cell Phone contracts: you pay per minute played, which often leads to much too high prices.
Imagine that you do some raiding and you all wait for minutes until a dude is ready.
The system sucks and I bet a LOT of Chinese friends pay way too much when being in a Raid etc...
So while WOW will never go F2P in the west (Blizzard's loyal fan base is too huge and the game would suffer from F2P mechanics in the west).
I can see benifits of making WOW China have some kind of F2P, because PAYING by the minute to play an MMORPG sucks.
Seeing the above it is no surprise that WOW lost most of its loyal players in China, and rather crappy copycats gained market share just by being free to play in China.
Blizzard could counter this with going F2P in China (just like they will do with COD and Hearthstone) and so players will no longer be pressured to "play as fast as possible" to limit their payment method.
Actually only trolls would say Chinese don't contribute to profits, the poor guys over there paid MUCH too MUCH by paying per minute played.
I just took some time, reinstalled WoW that i left behind just after Cataclysm release( for the last time) i got myself the free ten day pandaren trial
And actually i was surprised how well the game withstood the teeth of time. The graphics and annimations felt still very much acceptable. Combat flow is still among the best games. After tuning the interface with the very minimalistic LUI, i was off with my new kicking teddybear monk.
The quest system of WoW is actually the thing hurting most, its old and surpassed by the more dynamic and/or voiced over stuff. But it was not ruining the fun yet. Playing my higher level characters was hard tough, they all used new mechanics and required to me unknown specs, so it was easier to restart a lowly monk in the new areas.
I think if WoW added an expansion ( to get to level 100) with 2 new races, 2 new classes, an AA system at max level and a mix of current gameplay combined with more dynamic zones and such... Maybe even voiced over main questlines. And going B2p with optional subs , they would be right back in buiseness.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I just took some time, reinstalled WoW that i left behind just after Cataclysm release( for the last time) i got myself the free ten day pandaren trial
And actually i was surprised how well the game withstood the teeth of time. The graphics and annimations felt still very much acceptable. Combat flow is still among the best games. After tuning the interface with the very minimalistic LUI, i was off with my new kicking teddybear monk.
The quest system of WoW is actually the thing hurting most, its old and surpassed by the more dynamic and/or voiced over stuff. But it was not ruining the fun yet. Playing my higher level characters was hard tough, they all used new mechanics and required to me unknown specs, so it was easier to restart a lowly monk in the new areas.
I think if WoW added an expansion ( to get to level 100) with 2 new races, 2 new classes, an AA system at max level and a mix of current gameplay combined with more dynamic zones and such... Maybe even voiced over main questlines. And going B2p with optional subs , they would be right back in buiseness.
They will implement dynamic events in 5.4 At least thats a start for changing the old questing system.
Comments
To count as a subscription the player needed to have played in the last month in China, not 3 months.
I don't see the Chinese system as an advantage over the western (fixed) price subscription either.
It is like most of our cell Phone contracts: you pay per minute played, which often leads to much too high prices.
Imagine that you do some raiding and you all wait for minutes until a dude is ready.
The system sucks and I bet a LOT of Chinese friends pay way too much when being in a Raid etc...
So while WOW will never go F2P in the west (Blizzard's loyal fan base is too huge and the game would suffer from F2P mechanics in the west).
I can see benifits of making WOW China have some kind of F2P, because PAYING by the minute to play an MMORPG sucks.
Seeing the above it is no surprise that WOW lost most of its loyal players in China, and rather crappy copycats gained market share just by being free to play in China.
Blizzard could counter this with going F2P in China (just like they will do with COD and Hearthstone) and so players will no longer be pressured to "play as fast as possible" to limit their payment method.
Actually only trolls would say Chinese don't contribute to profits, the poor guys over there paid MUCH too MUCH by paying per minute played.
I just took some time, reinstalled WoW that i left behind just after Cataclysm release( for the last time) i got myself the free ten day pandaren trial
And actually i was surprised how well the game withstood the teeth of time. The graphics and annimations felt still very much acceptable. Combat flow is still among the best games. After tuning the interface with the very minimalistic LUI, i was off with my new kicking teddybear monk.
The quest system of WoW is actually the thing hurting most, its old and surpassed by the more dynamic and/or voiced over stuff. But it was not ruining the fun yet. Playing my higher level characters was hard tough, they all used new mechanics and required to me unknown specs, so it was easier to restart a lowly monk in the new areas.
I think if WoW added an expansion ( to get to level 100) with 2 new races, 2 new classes, an AA system at max level and a mix of current gameplay combined with more dynamic zones and such... Maybe even voiced over main questlines. And going B2p with optional subs , they would be right back in buiseness.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
They will implement dynamic events in 5.4 At least thats a start for changing the old questing system.
its getting old is all.9 years in mmo terms is ancient .
Tool to Earn WoW Gold in Your Sleep
ROFL @ "subscription is fine in the West, it only sucks in the East".
According to their latest earning report subscription dropped 600k with the breakdown of losses between the East and the West pretty much EVEN.