Yeah, invites back with offers of free time, add that to two new commercials, one featuring Chuck Norris and the other emphasizing the fact that girls play WoW, and Blizzard announcing several fairly large shifts in design philosophy for WoW after initial reports start saying how similar SWTOR is to WoW in terms of gameplay, and releasing 4.3 two weeks before SWTOR goes live(and a week before Early Access) and there is no question that Blizzard is feeling the heat.
I don't think that SWTOR will 'kill' WoW, despite what gameplay similarities there admittedly are the two games are two far apart for SWTOR to ever pull ALL of WoW's fanbase away. The bigger thing that Blizzard should be worried about is overreacting to how well SWTOR is bound to do right out of the gate(they've got well more than a million pre-orders and a lot of buzz, there is absolutely no guarantee that the game will have long term viability, there is still a lot up in the air after all since an MMO's success isn't just about launch, but it will definitely come out of the gate extremely strong) that Blizzard will overreact and end up seriously shooting themselves in the foot.
Of course, EA/Bioware has done a lot to 'compete' with WoW as well, as is only natural I suppose, and some of the things Blizzard is doing right now were probably in development for a while and it is more just there choice of when to announce it that is suspicious. WoW itself is at a difficult time now, of course, they have declining subs(not drastically declining, but still), 4.3 represents the definitive end of pretty much the last of the story-lines that have run through and driven the Warcraft franchise since its inception. Simply put, I think WoW is definitely at a crossroads, who knows where it and its success will go from here, and that is before even factoring in what effect SWTOR might have.
I've gotten 3 or 4 free comebacks for WoW since I quit in July'09, it's probably coincidence. But they do seem to be trying too hard with their commercials. A Chuck Norris commercial, 5+ years after Chuck Norris jokes stopped being funny and/or relevant? Come on. The other commercial with the girl is supposedly someone famous, but I don't know who, and the commercial fails to impress me.
The most notable part of the Chuck commercial to me was mention of how WoW only has 10 million players now, an open acknowledgement of the 2 million player decline. WoW hit its peak, and is not going to recover those 2 million. TOR has too much hype, and too many people were put off even further by Mists of Pandaria's debut trailer/announcement info(Pokemon minigame in WoW anyone?).
I've gotten 3 or 4 free comebacks for WoW since I quit in July'09, it's probably coincidence. But they do seem to be trying too hard with their commercials. A Chuck Norris commercial, 5+ years after Chuck Norris jokes stopped being funny and/or relevant? Come on. The other commercial with the girl is supposedly someone famous, but I don't know who, and the commercial fails to impress me.
The most notable part of the Chuck commercial to me was mention of how WoW only has 10 million players now, an open acknowledgement of the 2 million player decline. WoW hit its peak, and is not going to recover those 2 million. TOR has too much hype, and too many people were put off even further by Mists of Pandaria's debut trailer/announcement info(Pokemon minigame in WoW anyone?).
they made a comment on some press conference that they are below 9 million now and would not comment as to why. Their subs are going down faster then a cheerleader at homecoming
Be interested to know whether that number includes Chinese subs though, as there is that whole mess of them opening the game up to China but there are some restrictions by their government on it, and seem to have trouble getting active numbers because of that, and it seems to have been at best a passing fad over there anyway. . .or something like that. I've heard about 10 different things, at least 8 of which are probably Blizzard trying to spin that whole complicated situation to make themselves sound good.
Be interested to know whether that number includes Chinese subs though, as there is that whole mess of them opening the game up to China but there are some restrictions by their government on it, and seem to have trouble getting active numbers because of that, and it seems to have been at best a passing fad over there anyway. . .or something like that. I've heard about 10 different things, at least 8 of which are probably Blizzard trying to spin that whole complicated situation to make themselves sound good.
the biggest hit from what their info the stock holder get is that the builk of the subs they have lost have been from North Maerica and Eurpoe, which is where they make their money. China has a differnt pay system and they make far less money over there. At best they had about 5.5 million subs between NA and EU and that number has droped by nearly 50%. Saying they still have 9 million subs sounds lik alot but when the subs they lost provided their highest revenue it paints a much different picture.
Its also prolly why they went the Panda/pokemon route for the next x-pack to try and get more asian subs because they might feel they have lost the NA/EU markets and need to do more in the marks they still have the larger numbers.
Not going to lie one of the major reasons for me to cancel my WoW account was the fact that they were bringing in the Pokemon/Panda stuff. There were a host of other reasons but the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was that news.
WoW is still a great game if you are new to it. The old saying is true, Familiarity breeds Contempt.
I was playing it right up until Septemeber when I got in TOR Beta. After that, I could not go back to WoW, or any MMO really. Not sure what exactly I like so much about TOR, but it scratches whatever itch I have for MMOs :)
WoW is still a great game if you are new to it. The old saying is true, Familiarity breeds Contempt.
I was playing it right up until Septemeber when I got in TOR Beta. After that, I could not go back to WoW, or any MMO really. Not sure what exactly I like so much about TOR, but it scratches whatever itch I have for MMOs :)
Wow was great until Activision got into it. You could tell that Ulduar was the last Raid made before the take over. Vannila was great, ground breaking MMO TBC built on it, Wrath made it so every dumbass with 15 bucks a month can kill everything... Cata made thigns so bad that millions of people have left. Bizzards answer Pandas and Pokemon... Casual gamers are a great thing to have in an MMO, but Blizzard allowed "causal" to be used as a euphemism for bad player. Sorry but just because you pay 15 bucks a month does not automatically gratn you the ability to see everything. There should be cntent that only the best players see, that give something for the bad players to work for.
Blizzard only hurt themselfs by handing out loot for doing basically nothing. I hope Bioware is msart enough to see that it did far more hard them good to Blizzard.
At least SW is based in more seriousness. Short of BioWare introducing Mount Sorrow(look him up on Wookieepedia), there's not many ways TOR could go over the top weird/silly.
I agree that there should be some kind of reward for skill, but I also think that if someone is willing to pay the sub cost then they should at least have the 'opportunity' to see everything and I thought the 10/25 and regular/heroic dichotomy did a good job of achieving that goal in Wrath, which I personally thought was a really good expansion on the whole.
The problem isn't honestly the mechanics, or the 'casual gamer' thing(which, personally I've never bought into, although I won't deny a lot of terrible players hide behind the fact they are 'casual' gamers, but that is a whole different question.
Storywise you have
Vanilla WoW - introduction to the world and with Raids referencing some of the content established in the previous Warcraft games but not delving into it heavily. TBC - Continues and resolves the storyline of the Burning Crusade introduced in Warcraft III, the most widely successful of the previous Warcraft games and what got a lot of gamers into the franchise. Result handled pretty well. WotLK - Continues and resolves the storyline of Arthas and the Lich King, introduced in Warcraft III and continued in Frozen Throne, a lot of people still on board because of the relation to those games. Result handled pretty well. Cataclysm - continues and resolves the story of Deathwing, which was part of the earlier Warcraft games, they started losing people(and I've seen lots of people mention this) because they just weren't that invested in the story because it was from before what got them into the series, results a bit mixed from everything I have heard(although I liked what I played).
That is pretty much Blizzard playing their hand, they have now exhausted the story lines they have had from the series that went before them. Combine that with a product that a lot consider to be inferior to what it was before is creating a problem.
The problem isn't the Pandas, the problem is that the Pandas have no basis in the mythos save for a couple joke references(yes, someone a number of years ago wrote a whole backstory about them which is considered canon, but lets face it, most people don't even know the plot of Warcrafts I-III let alone some obscure bit of lore which I think was established for the trading cards or something.
@RogueJedi 86 - please don't say such things, they tempt fate, karma, etc. Especially since how SW can go over the top isn't so much ideas but in how they are presented. They start taking some of the aspects of the SW Universe to some of the extremes that some aspects of the fandom do then they would almost certainly infuriate a lot of other fans, which in the long and short run would be far worse for the game than introducing Pandas. That is what is most impressive that Bioware is doing, the very real danger when dealing with such a passionate and divisive fanbase as SW has, that they could very easily seriously piss one group or another off and start a community destroying flame war. So far they have pretty much avoided that, but that threat looms over everything they've built here.
Last edited by Doorofnight on 12/10/2011 11:28:24 PM
I agree that there should be some kind of reward for skill, but I also think that if someone is willing to pay the sub cost then they should at least have the 'opportunity' to see everything and I thought the 10/25 and regular/heroic dichotomy did a good job of achieving that goal in Wrath, which I personally thought was a really good expansion on the whole.
The problem isn't honestly the mechanics, or the 'casual gamer' thing(which, personally I've never bought into, although I won't deny a lot of terrible players hide behind the fact they are 'casual' gamers, but that is a whole different question.
Storywise you have
Vanilla WoW - introduction to the world and with Raids referencing some of the content established in the previous Warcraft games but not delving into it heavily. TBC - Continues and resolves the storyline of the Burning Crusade introduced in Warcraft III, the most widely successful of the previous Warcraft games and what got a lot of gamers into the franchise. Result handled pretty well. WotLK - Continues and resolves the storyline of Arthas and the Lich King, introduced in Warcraft III and continued in Frozen Throne, a lot of people still on board because of the relation to those games. Result handled pretty well. Cataclysm - continues and resolves the story of Deathwing, which was part of the earlier Warcraft games, they started losing people(and I've seen lots of people mention this) because they just weren't that invested in the story because it was from before what got them into the series, results a bit mixed from everything I have heard(although I liked what I played).
That is pretty much Blizzard playing their hand, they have now exhausted the story lines they have had from the series that went before them. Combine that with a product that a lot consider to be inferior to what it was before is creating a problem.
The problem isn't the Pandas, the problem is that the Pandas have no basis in the mythos save for a couple joke references(yes, someone a number of years ago wrote a whole backstory about them which is considered canon, but lets face it, most people don't even know the plot of Warcrafts I-III let alone some obscure bit of lore which I think was established for the trading cards or something.
@RogueJedi 86 - please don't say such things, they tempt fate, karma, etc. Especially since how SW can go over the top isn't so much ideas but in how they are presented. They start taking some of the aspects of the SW Universe to some of the extremes that some aspects of the fandom do then they would almost certainly infuriate a lot of other fans, which in the long and short run would be far worse for the game than introducing Pandas. That is what is most impressive that Bioware is doing, the very real danger when dealing with such a passionate and divisive fanbase as SW has, that they could very easily seriously piss one group or another off and start a community destroying flame war. So far they have pretty much avoided that, but that threat looms over everything they've built here.
sorry but when they make all content so easy that a random group of people can clear content with no communication and no skill then its way too easy. Just because you pay 15 bucks a month does not mean you can get everything and still suck at the game. If you want to "see" everything then earn your spot in a raid. Just because you can only play a few hours a day or a week does not give you an excuse to be terrible.
I said OPPORTUNITY to get and do everything, not 'free pass' to get everything. Did they make some things too easy? yes, but then again that is what 10 man regular is for and the gear you get from that is clearly inferior to heroics which definitely do take skill and coordination.
Last edited by Doorofnight on 12/10/2011 11:53:48 PM
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Posted 12/10/2011 4:29:32 PM3 days till Early Access and they send me an -eamil for 7 days free in WoW. That just seems really really sad to me
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Posted 12/10/2011 4:44:25 PMLol, yeah i got the same invitation. I quit like 8 months ago and they want me to go back to play. hmmm... right before SWTOR launch how convenient.
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Posted 12/10/2011 5:04:14 PMYeah, invites back with offers of free time, add that to two new commercials, one featuring Chuck Norris and the other emphasizing the fact that girls play WoW, and Blizzard announcing several fairly large shifts in design philosophy for WoW after initial reports start saying how similar SWTOR is to WoW in terms of gameplay, and releasing 4.3 two weeks before SWTOR goes live(and a week before Early Access) and there is no question that Blizzard is feeling the heat.
I don't think that SWTOR will 'kill' WoW, despite what gameplay similarities there admittedly are the two games are two far apart for SWTOR to ever pull ALL of WoW's fanbase away. The bigger thing that Blizzard should be worried about is overreacting to how well SWTOR is bound to do right out of the gate(they've got well more than a million pre-orders and a lot of buzz, there is absolutely no guarantee that the game will have long term viability, there is still a lot up in the air after all since an MMO's success isn't just about launch, but it will definitely come out of the gate extremely strong) that Blizzard will overreact and end up seriously shooting themselves in the foot.
Of course, EA/Bioware has done a lot to 'compete' with WoW as well, as is only natural I suppose, and some of the things Blizzard is doing right now were probably in development for a while and it is more just there choice of when to announce it that is suspicious. WoW itself is at a difficult time now, of course, they have declining subs(not drastically declining, but still), 4.3 represents the definitive end of pretty much the last of the story-lines that have run through and driven the Warcraft franchise since its inception. Simply put, I think WoW is definitely at a crossroads, who knows where it and its success will go from here, and that is before even factoring in what effect SWTOR might have.
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Posted 12/10/2011 5:53:18 PMI've gotten 3 or 4 free comebacks for WoW since I quit in July'09, it's probably coincidence. But they do seem to be trying too hard with their commercials. A Chuck Norris commercial, 5+ years after Chuck Norris jokes stopped being funny and/or relevant? Come on. The other commercial with the girl is supposedly someone famous, but I don't know who, and the commercial fails to impress me.
The most notable part of the Chuck commercial to me was mention of how WoW only has 10 million players now, an open acknowledgement of the 2 million player decline. WoW hit its peak, and is not going to recover those 2 million. TOR has too much hype, and too many people were put off even further by Mists of Pandaria's debut trailer/announcement info(Pokemon minigame in WoW anyone?).
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Posted 12/10/2011 5:56:02 PMthey made a comment on some press conference that they are below 9 million now and would not comment as to why. Their subs are going down faster then a cheerleader at homecoming
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Posted 12/10/2011 6:01:07 PMBe interested to know whether that number includes Chinese subs though, as there is that whole mess of them opening the game up to China but there are some restrictions by their government on it, and seem to have trouble getting active numbers because of that, and it seems to have been at best a passing fad over there anyway. . .or something like that. I've heard about 10 different things, at least 8 of which are probably Blizzard trying to spin that whole complicated situation to make themselves sound good.
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Posted 12/10/2011 6:10:46 PMthe biggest hit from what their info the stock holder get is that the builk of the subs they have lost have been from North Maerica and Eurpoe, which is where they make their money. China has a differnt pay system and they make far less money over there. At best they had about 5.5 million subs between NA and EU and that number has droped by nearly 50%. Saying they still have 9 million subs sounds lik alot but when the subs they lost provided their highest revenue it paints a much different picture.
Its also prolly why they went the Panda/pokemon route for the next x-pack to try and get more asian subs because they might feel they have lost the NA/EU markets and need to do more in the marks they still have the larger numbers.
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Posted 12/10/2011 7:08:13 PMNot going to lie one of the major reasons for me to cancel my WoW account was the fact that they were bringing in the Pokemon/Panda stuff. There were a host of other reasons but the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was that news.
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Posted 12/10/2011 7:59:55 PMWoW is still a great game if you are new to it. The old saying is true, Familiarity breeds Contempt.
I was playing it right up until Septemeber when I got in TOR Beta. After that, I could not go back to WoW, or any MMO really. Not sure what exactly I like so much about TOR, but it scratches whatever itch I have for MMOs :)
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Posted 12/10/2011 8:05:24 PMWow was great until Activision got into it. You could tell that Ulduar was the last Raid made before the take over. Vannila was great, ground breaking MMO TBC built on it, Wrath made it so every dumbass with 15 bucks a month can kill everything... Cata made thigns so bad that millions of people have left. Bizzards answer Pandas and Pokemon... Casual gamers are a great thing to have in an MMO, but Blizzard allowed "causal" to be used as a euphemism for bad player. Sorry but just because you pay 15 bucks a month does not automatically gratn you the ability to see everything. There should be cntent that only the best players see, that give something for the bad players to work for.
Blizzard only hurt themselfs by handing out loot for doing basically nothing. I hope Bioware is msart enough to see that it did far more hard them good to Blizzard.
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Posted 12/10/2011 10:59:47 PMAt least SW is based in more seriousness. Short of BioWare introducing Mount Sorrow(look him up on Wookieepedia), there's not many ways TOR could go over the top weird/silly.
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Posted 12/10/2011 11:23:36 PMI agree that there should be some kind of reward for skill, but I also think that if someone is willing to pay the sub cost then they should at least have the 'opportunity' to see everything and I thought the 10/25 and regular/heroic dichotomy did a good job of achieving that goal in Wrath, which I personally thought was a really good expansion on the whole.
The problem isn't honestly the mechanics, or the 'casual gamer' thing(which, personally I've never bought into, although I won't deny a lot of terrible players hide behind the fact they are 'casual' gamers, but that is a whole different question.
Storywise you have
Vanilla WoW - introduction to the world and with Raids referencing some of the content established in the previous Warcraft games but not delving into it heavily.
TBC - Continues and resolves the storyline of the Burning Crusade introduced in Warcraft III, the most widely successful of the previous Warcraft games and what got a lot of gamers into the franchise. Result handled pretty well.
WotLK - Continues and resolves the storyline of Arthas and the Lich King, introduced in Warcraft III and continued in Frozen Throne, a lot of people still on board because of the relation to those games. Result handled pretty well.
Cataclysm - continues and resolves the story of Deathwing, which was part of the earlier Warcraft games, they started losing people(and I've seen lots of people mention this) because they just weren't that invested in the story because it was from before what got them into the series, results a bit mixed from everything I have heard(although I liked what I played).
That is pretty much Blizzard playing their hand, they have now exhausted the story lines they have had from the series that went before them. Combine that with a product that a lot consider to be inferior to what it was before is creating a problem.
The problem isn't the Pandas, the problem is that the Pandas have no basis in the mythos save for a couple joke references(yes, someone a number of years ago wrote a whole backstory about them which is considered canon, but lets face it, most people don't even know the plot of Warcrafts I-III let alone some obscure bit of lore which I think was established for the trading cards or something.
@RogueJedi 86 - please don't say such things, they tempt fate, karma, etc. Especially since how SW can go over the top isn't so much ideas but in how they are presented. They start taking some of the aspects of the SW Universe to some of the extremes that some aspects of the fandom do then they would almost certainly infuriate a lot of other fans, which in the long and short run would be far worse for the game than introducing Pandas. That is what is most impressive that Bioware is doing, the very real danger when dealing with such a passionate and divisive fanbase as SW has, that they could very easily seriously piss one group or another off and start a community destroying flame war. So far they have pretty much avoided that, but that threat looms over everything they've built here.
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Posted 12/10/2011 11:37:36 PMsorry but when they make all content so easy that a random group of people can clear content with no communication and no skill then its way too easy. Just because you pay 15 bucks a month does not mean you can get everything and still suck at the game. If you want to "see" everything then earn your spot in a raid. Just because you can only play a few hours a day or a week does not give you an excuse to be terrible.
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Posted 12/10/2011 11:53:19 PMI said OPPORTUNITY to get and do everything, not 'free pass' to get everything. Did they make some things too easy? yes, but then again that is what 10 man regular is for and the gear you get from that is clearly inferior to heroics which definitely do take skill and coordination.
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Posted 12/11/2011 12:32:12 AMDesperate gaming company being desperate