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I wouldn't call the new raid finder extremely well done. It is far from done when people who already have the loot can loot the same items again and hold them for ransom to trade for other items you want. That is a huge issue that I hear is being fixed in MoP, but that was one of the small things that made it so I won't be around then, that, and I am just utterly bored with the exact same kind of gameplay over and over. Same quests, same types or raids, same everything.
And they completely dropped the ball on casual players this expansion by forcing them to raid for the final tiered gear, you can't earn your 2 piece bonus by working on valor points. They completely screwed up the economy by almost killing the ability to make completed trade gear and sell it since all the recipes, rare drop components, and so on are raid only drops, and due to prices on those items you have to charge too much for the items or you take a hit in gold.
They learned a lot in Wrath of the Lich King and then ignored all of it for Cataclysm.
And they completely dropped the ball on casual players this expansion by forcing them to raid for the final tiered gear, you can't earn your 2 piece bonus by working on valor points. They completely screwed up the economy by almost killing the ability to make completed trade gear and sell it since all the recipes, rare drop components, and so on are raid only drops, and due to prices on those items you have to charge too much for the items or you take a hit in gold.
They learned a lot in Wrath of the Lich King and then ignored all of it for Cataclysm.
Phew, that's a relief. I mean, at 10.2 million subscribers Actibliz is making over 150 million every month. Can you imagine if it dropped to, oh the horror, single-digit millions, and they had to survive on, say, 140 million a month? They'd starve to death the poor things!
Now I can sleep soundly knowing WoW is fine!
Now I can sleep soundly knowing WoW is fine!
I think WoW has so many people it'll be hard for it to actually die. I know a number of people who play WoW simply to socialize, and since they've spent so much time there I doubt they'll ever really want to give it up permanently. Distractions like SW:TOR will come and go, but players will always have WoW in the back of their minds.
I think WoW has so many people it will be hard for it to actually die. I know a number of people who play WoW simply to socialize, and since they have spent so much time there I doubt they'll ever really want to give it up permanently. Sure a new MMO like SW:TOR will attract people to try it but they'll wind up going back to WoW who's been in business for years and had time to hammer out the MMO kinks and now has an experience smooth as butter.
Id rather slit my wrists with a butter knife than pay to play kung fu panda. This just in Diablo 3 is almost here!
Given how long WoW has been in operation and that its costs are mainly server maintenance and development of expansions, I imagine it has a really ridiculous profit margin. It probably doesn't need that many subscribers to break even, meaning it would be fine even if it dipped below 10 million.
Seriously, the amount of money WoW has made, and will continue to make for the forseeable future, is ridiculous.
Seriously, the amount of money WoW has made, and will continue to make for the forseeable future, is ridiculous.
The real question raised by this article is: When will WoW add models for pleated skirts into the game?
@Tiredman: How is it "dropping the ball" on casual players to give them the raid finder, which is every bit as easy to use as doing a heroic dungeon? The difficulty level is even LOWER than many heroic dungeons. Casual players get easy access to even MORE content and you're complaining that they moved some of the loot around? Really?
@Tiredman: How is it "dropping the ball" on casual players to give them the raid finder, which is every bit as easy to use as doing a heroic dungeon? The difficulty level is even LOWER than many heroic dungeons. Casual players get easy access to even MORE content and you're complaining that they moved some of the loot around? Really?
TOR needs a lot more than a dungeon finder, but god yes, do they need one. I would actually probably do the new instances if they implemented one. I just have no desire to try to scrape together a group in the game. My guild has a hard enough time doing it for our scheduled raids as it is.
@MRR
I will tell you. Due to people going in with guildies and hording loot, people with the loot 5 times over going in and rolling on loot to hold for random to trade to friends or for the odd item they are missing, and so on, it makes the whole affair frustrating for a lot of people, including my brother, dad, and a few friends who play. I take my dad for example, he is a retired military man who plays WoW because my brother talked him into it more than a year ago. He does the raid finder on 3 different characters per week, and he has 4 items to show for his runs. I play some of his toons when he is on the phone, or he just asks me to so he can move take a break and move around due to back issues, and when I saw people roll on loot, I inspected them afterwards when they won. Out of everybody I inspected I would say around 90 percent of them sported full 397 loot, already had the item they rolled on, and a large chunk of them were auctioning in raid 2 minutes later wanting to trade.
Now this wouldn't normally be a problem, just another part of the social phenomena that is a mmo, except Blizzard decided to take valor buyable tiered gear off vendors. People like having their tiered gear, and are so used to being able to buy either a lower version, or a few pieces off the vendor with valor, then blizzard forces them to get all the pieces from raids where you have to roll against a ton of people who don't need them, and just look at them as bargaining chips. And when the item they want drops and they can't get a trade, or no items they want drop, they leave raid, and sell the items to a vendor.
My personal pet peeve though is the lack of raid level tradeskill items on the valor vendor. Wrath of the lich king did that in a really nice way that let people who managed to get recipes have a source of components, and gave non raiders and raiders alike a way to make a good bit of cash with valor. They did away with this in cataclysm, and man it annoyed me so much.
Anyway, I will stop there. My view is my WoW playing time is numbered to weeks, not even sure if I will get into Diablo 3, but my family wants me to play with them, so I am getting it and trying it out. WoW is just boring now, ever since they moved the senior devs to that new Project Titan that was mentioned, WoW has gone downhill.
I will tell you. Due to people going in with guildies and hording loot, people with the loot 5 times over going in and rolling on loot to hold for random to trade to friends or for the odd item they are missing, and so on, it makes the whole affair frustrating for a lot of people, including my brother, dad, and a few friends who play. I take my dad for example, he is a retired military man who plays WoW because my brother talked him into it more than a year ago. He does the raid finder on 3 different characters per week, and he has 4 items to show for his runs. I play some of his toons when he is on the phone, or he just asks me to so he can move take a break and move around due to back issues, and when I saw people roll on loot, I inspected them afterwards when they won. Out of everybody I inspected I would say around 90 percent of them sported full 397 loot, already had the item they rolled on, and a large chunk of them were auctioning in raid 2 minutes later wanting to trade.
Now this wouldn't normally be a problem, just another part of the social phenomena that is a mmo, except Blizzard decided to take valor buyable tiered gear off vendors. People like having their tiered gear, and are so used to being able to buy either a lower version, or a few pieces off the vendor with valor, then blizzard forces them to get all the pieces from raids where you have to roll against a ton of people who don't need them, and just look at them as bargaining chips. And when the item they want drops and they can't get a trade, or no items they want drop, they leave raid, and sell the items to a vendor.
My personal pet peeve though is the lack of raid level tradeskill items on the valor vendor. Wrath of the lich king did that in a really nice way that let people who managed to get recipes have a source of components, and gave non raiders and raiders alike a way to make a good bit of cash with valor. They did away with this in cataclysm, and man it annoyed me so much.
Anyway, I will stop there. My view is my WoW playing time is numbered to weeks, not even sure if I will get into Diablo 3, but my family wants me to play with them, so I am getting it and trying it out. WoW is just boring now, ever since they moved the senior devs to that new Project Titan that was mentioned, WoW has gone downhill.
Remember Everquest 1 is still active today and is still getting expansions, that game is still from the previous millennium.
Blizzard's income is down from the previous quarter, not to mention how far income is down year over year. Blizzard has been replacing higher end subs in the west with lower cost subs from elsewhere.
Blizzard is still doing fine, but cheerleader articles like this one are deceptive.
Blizzard is still doing fine, but cheerleader articles like this one are deceptive.
Tiredman:
I still don't understand the point. Valor point gear is worth more than LFR gear easily. If your dad plays raids 3 times a week on 3 toons, then he's a lil too obsessed with the game, as you sound. You're getting stressed out over stuff that's about to be obsolete with Mists.
Also for comparison, I've done Fall of Deathwing exactly 3 times with LFR. In that time, I've gotten 2 rings, a belt, gloves the Poisonous Blade and the Staff off Deathwing. I don't think everyone sees this hoarding you speak of.
I still don't understand the point. Valor point gear is worth more than LFR gear easily. If your dad plays raids 3 times a week on 3 toons, then he's a lil too obsessed with the game, as you sound. You're getting stressed out over stuff that's about to be obsolete with Mists.
Also for comparison, I've done Fall of Deathwing exactly 3 times with LFR. In that time, I've gotten 2 rings, a belt, gloves the Poisonous Blade and the Staff off Deathwing. I don't think everyone sees this hoarding you speak of.
It's got a lot of people that are deeply invested into the game. Quitting will be next to impossible for a lot of them unless they're truly fed up for some reason. Then there's the psychological aspect, where the game is designed to manipulate people in subtle but significant ways.
Just glad I got those hooks out of me years ago. For the poor saps still hooked into World of Grindcraft I imagine they won't realizes how taken they've been until it's eventually over, and then I imagine quite a few will enjoy long (or endless) denial.
Just glad I got those hooks out of me years ago. For the poor saps still hooked into World of Grindcraft I imagine they won't realizes how taken they've been until it's eventually over, and then I imagine quite a few will enjoy long (or endless) denial.
@Tiredman, there are changes in the works to stop people from doing this. Small comfort now, but it gets better.™
@Tiredman: I can actually see where you're coming from with that. Even if the valor point vendor gear is statistically superior to the raid-finder tier-gear, the tier-gear has been something noteworthy to aim for since WotLK.
However, I'm not sure your experience is really the experience of a "casual player". If you and your friends have enough time to do several full clears with LFR, maybe you should consider putting a 10-player raid together and giving that a shot instead?
However, I'm not sure your experience is really the experience of a "casual player". If you and your friends have enough time to do several full clears with LFR, maybe you should consider putting a 10-player raid together and giving that a shot instead?
The Panderia expansion looks utterly stupid. The video game equivalent of jumping the shark if you will. But the few WoW players turned off enough to leave will probably be replaced by furries, soooo... x_x
"Activision reports that World of Warcraft still has 10.2 million paying customers: despite recent rumors of dropping below 10 million."
Yeah, but to be honest, with how things flux so much, it could be above or below at any given time any way.. That .2, whether it means 200,000 or not, could come and go at any time. It'd be a bigger deal if they said they had 11 million after the rumor it'd dropped below 10.
And yeah, when Mists comes out a lot of people will have their attention back on WoW, but that's a given at this point. I won't, but thats just how completely done I've become with that game.
@Silent
It has a player search, but as far as I could figure it out it was only in the zone your in. So screw looking for other players to form a group with who maybe on the space station or whatever -you have to hope they come to your planet and find you on that 1 list, and that they even see that you clicked "looking for group" (or know what that icon even looks like in the first place).
It also doesn't have a way to addiquately search for a guild. Like, in WoW you can out in a guild name in the "who" panel, or /who a guild name, and you'd get a list of people who were from a guild that even just sort of matched what you put in.. TOR doesn't have that, which makes looking for a specific guild, now that they've taken away most of the guild search functionality from the website, just about impossible.. Hell, TOR doesn't really even has slash commands at all.
Yeah, but to be honest, with how things flux so much, it could be above or below at any given time any way.. That .2, whether it means 200,000 or not, could come and go at any time. It'd be a bigger deal if they said they had 11 million after the rumor it'd dropped below 10.
And yeah, when Mists comes out a lot of people will have their attention back on WoW, but that's a given at this point. I won't, but thats just how completely done I've become with that game.
@Silent
It has a player search, but as far as I could figure it out it was only in the zone your in. So screw looking for other players to form a group with who maybe on the space station or whatever -you have to hope they come to your planet and find you on that 1 list, and that they even see that you clicked "looking for group" (or know what that icon even looks like in the first place).
It also doesn't have a way to addiquately search for a guild. Like, in WoW you can out in a guild name in the "who" panel, or /who a guild name, and you'd get a list of people who were from a guild that even just sort of matched what you put in.. TOR doesn't have that, which makes looking for a specific guild, now that they've taken away most of the guild search functionality from the website, just about impossible.. Hell, TOR doesn't really even has slash commands at all.
@Startyde: I promise you he is not exaggerating. I am somewhat guilty of it myself, I was running with guildies on my pally who requires nothing from LFR but I gave away the bracers I won to a plate-wearer who stuck around the whole time because no one in my group needed them.
It happens all the time though, I'm trying to gear a hunter and the last 2 weeks in a row I've watched people win them who, upon inspection didn't need anything, further, the bow dropped off of Madness and I watched some asshole disenchant it right in front of me before I could offer to pay him for it.
So at this point I've run the entire LFR twice and got nothing lol even while offering to pay.
It happens all the time though, I'm trying to gear a hunter and the last 2 weeks in a row I've watched people win them who, upon inspection didn't need anything, further, the bow dropped off of Madness and I watched some asshole disenchant it right in front of me before I could offer to pay him for it.
So at this point I've run the entire LFR twice and got nothing lol even while offering to pay.
Back in my day, I had to spam LFG/Trade chat for 3 hours to put together a 25 man PUG Magtheridon group. It usually succeeded, but I never got anything out of it! And we liked it! :p
I would have killed for a raid finder, if only just to go experience the content with far less effort. All the points are valid, I suppose -- but at that point you may want to find a guild.
I would have killed for a raid finder, if only just to go experience the content with far less effort. All the points are valid, I suppose -- but at that point you may want to find a guild.
The idea of Blizzard having 10 million active subscribers by the time Titan comes out is just mind boggling. Swtor can't even break 2 million, and they sunk hundreds of millions over half a decade just to create it. Hell, if they have *ONE* million active by the end of the year, I'd be shocked.
Considering how slow it is to accrue valor without raiding anyway i'd say that even with the reduced odds of gearing in the raid finder, on average its probably gonna take the same amount of time.
Getting tier gear from valor points is wrong anyway. Fundementally, the gear has no worth out of raids apart from aesthetically, and with transmog thats not even always the case anymore.
Analysing subscriber numbers for WoW is a fools errand. With the pay as you go system in china (where most of the fluctuation happens), people only subscribe when they havent cleared the content. Its been noted over the years that hundreds of thousands come and go depending on the state of the patch cycle.
Getting tier gear from valor points is wrong anyway. Fundementally, the gear has no worth out of raids apart from aesthetically, and with transmog thats not even always the case anymore.
Analysing subscriber numbers for WoW is a fools errand. With the pay as you go system in china (where most of the fluctuation happens), people only subscribe when they havent cleared the content. Its been noted over the years that hundreds of thousands come and go depending on the state of the patch cycle.
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