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Rollie
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 Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:23 pm Post subject: November Concurrency Numbers |
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<a href='http://www.warcraftrealms.com/temp/activity-1107.htm'><img src='http://www.warcraftrealms.com/temp/activity-1107_files/image001.gif' width='300' height='200'></a>
It's that time of the month again and we have calculated the November concurrency numbers provided by the <a href='http://www.warcraftrealms.com/censusplus.php'>CensusPlus</a> UI Addon.
Well it looks like the introduction of patch 2.3 and Arena Season 3 was enough to bring many players back out of the woodwork and back in game. Concurrent players for both EU and US were up in November. The increase for US players was much higher than that of EU which was only up slightly.
The question now becomes, will this new content be enough to keep the majority of players interested in playing until <a href="http://www.wrathofthelichking.com">Wrath of the Lich King</a> is released? The release date for Wrath of the Lich King is highly speculated, but for me personally, my bet is on summer of '08. |
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Hybuir
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| Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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I'd say summer to pre-halloween. You gotta get them for the release then a big push for xmas 
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TheDeamon
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| Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 2:17 am Post subject: |
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Well, with thier comments about what happened with Naxx and not wanting to repeat said mistakes, there will likely be at least 6 months between release of the Sunwell and release of WotLK... Unless Sunwell is a remarkably small raid zone with only a handfull of fights to master as opposed to the legion of fights found in Naxx.
So with an estimate of the Sunwell going live in January or February, that is going to peg WotLK as no earlier than July or August of 2008.
I'm inclined to say they will be pushing pretty hard not to go longer than that, because of the very trends that Rollie has been tracking here. Long time lags between new content being introduced == drop in subscriber activity, and likely a correseponding tepid (re)susbscription rate. |
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Eyeball-Dragonmaw
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| Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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You also have to figure in when Warhammer sets an official release date. I think that will have a huge factor in determining their release of things. If they want to maintain their current player base they better release WotLK 3-5 weeks before Warhammer to get people locked in to staying, and not trying Warhammer.
I think though the only player base WoW will lose with Warhammer is from the PvP servers since Warhammer is all about PvP, not just stupid BG's. Even Warhammer isnt rushing their release, and keep pushing it back which tells me its gonna be good when it comes out. It has to be. With Wow putting every other MMO in history to shame with 100+ servers just in the US the next gen MMO has to be exactly like WoW, but with stuff players want that Blizz hasn't offered.
I can't wait....
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TheDeamon
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 1:49 am Post subject: |
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| Eyeball-Dragonmaw wrote: | I think though the only player base WoW will lose with Warhammer is from the PvP servers since Warhammer is all about PvP, not just stupid BG's. Even Warhammer isnt rushing their release, and keep pushing it back which tells me its gonna be good when it comes out. It has to be. With Wow putting every other MMO in history to shame with 100+ servers just in the US the next gen MMO has to be exactly like WoW, but with stuff players want that Blizz hasn't offered.
I can't wait.... |
NDA's make it hard to call on that one, I've heard plenty of grumblings about Warhammer, and most of it wasn't positive. We still get to wait and see on that front, and maybe they're listening to the beta testers feedback which is further driving the delay? *shrug* |
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Alanthus
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:18 am Post subject: |
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| TheDeamon wrote: | | Eyeball-Dragonmaw wrote: | I think though the only player base WoW will lose with Warhammer is from the PvP servers since Warhammer is all about PvP, not just stupid BG's. Even Warhammer isnt rushing their release, and keep pushing it back which tells me its gonna be good when it comes out. It has to be. With Wow putting every other MMO in history to shame with 100+ servers just in the US the next gen MMO has to be exactly like WoW, but with stuff players want that Blizz hasn't offered.
I can't wait.... |
NDA's make it hard to call on that one, I've heard plenty of grumblings about Warhammer, and most of it wasn't positive. We still get to wait and see on that front, and maybe they're listening to the beta testers feedback which is further driving the delay? *shrug* |
If people were not grumbling about the beta they wouldn't care 
Bottom line is WAR is the biggest thing in the pipeline, it's from a company that knows how to launch a successful MMO, has the same access to resources Blizzard has, an even more powerful marketing arm etc. so it's definately going to be a game Blizzard watches with great interest both for marketing purposes, game ideas for patches and simply because most of the devs at Blizzard still being gamers they will be as interested as you or me
We'll see how they succeed with the game when it's out, I personally like the changes they made to beta a lot since it sounds like they slaughtered the holy cow of "no DAOC2" and instead are going for a solid Warhammer IP game with some of the features that still make DAOC end game shine in comparison to others.
I do think it will initially mainly appeal to people on PvP servers but a lot of people I work and know in real life play on PvE servers not because they don't enjoy a good fight against another player but because they simply didn't enjoy getting a) ganked while levelling, usually while afk or distracted by a family member b) ganked by people in gear from a part of the game they will never even see c) ganked by an invisible enemy while at 10% life or similar things that speak more to poor game design than actually not enjoying the potential of PvP. WoW is a PvE game with PvP thrown in late in the development cycle. WAR will be designed from the ground up for PvP/RvR. I for one hope it will succeed in doing for PvP what WoW did for PvE, from what I hear so far about no stealther class, the chicken factor and so forth they are making a lot of effort to make PvP enjoyable rather just frustrating for casuals.
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TheDeamon
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Alanthus wrote: | | TheDeamon wrote: | | Eyeball-Dragonmaw wrote: | I think though the only player base WoW will lose with Warhammer is from the PvP servers since Warhammer is all about PvP, not just stupid BG's. Even Warhammer isnt rushing their release, and keep pushing it back which tells me its gonna be good when it comes out. It has to be. With Wow putting every other MMO in history to shame with 100+ servers just in the US the next gen MMO has to be exactly like WoW, but with stuff players want that Blizz hasn't offered.
I can't wait.... |
NDA's make it hard to call on that one, I've heard plenty of grumblings about Warhammer, and most of it wasn't positive. We still get to wait and see on that front, and maybe they're listening to the beta testers feedback which is further driving the delay? *shrug* |
If people were not grumbling about the beta they wouldn't care |
Actually that is what most of the grumbling I've caught wind of is. That the game plays in such a way it is very hard to care about what is going on with the game.
| Quote: | | Bottom line is WAR is the biggest thing in the pipeline, it's from a company that knows how to launch a successful MMO, has the same access to resources Blizzard has, an even more powerful marketing arm etc. so it's definately going to be a game Blizzard watches with great interest both for marketing purposes, game ideas for patches and simply because most of the devs at Blizzard still being gamers they will be as interested as you or me |
Oh yeah, it certainly is something Blizzard will keep an eye on, for the reasons you mentioned. They'd be foolish not to.
That being said, just because all of those ingredients are present doesn't mean the game is actually going to be able to pose a significant threat to the size of WoW's subscriber base.
| Quote: | | I do think it will initially mainly appeal to people on PvP servers but a lot of people I work and know in real life play on PvE servers not because they don't enjoy a good fight against another player but because they simply didn't enjoy getting a) ganked while levelling, usually while afk or distracted by a family member b) ganked by people in gear from a part of the game they will never even see c) ganked by an invisible enemy while at 10% life or similar things that speak more to poor game design than actually not enjoying the potential of PvP. |
Funny, because those complaints to me reflect a game that generally reflects what human behavior would tend to be "in the real world" if people were placed into that kind of enviroment. Which ironically makes it one of the more "realistic" feature sets in WoW. But then, I also play on a PvP server. 
| Quote: | | WoW is a PvE game with PvP thrown in late in the development cycle. WAR will be designed from the ground up for PvP/RvR. I for one hope it will succeed in doing for PvP what WoW did for PvE, from what I hear so far about no stealther class, the chicken factor and so forth they are making a lot of effort to make PvP enjoyable rather just frustrating for casuals. |
I'm not going to really disagree there, the game was primarily designed around PvE. And in all honesty, I'm inclined to say that for very large scale MMO's, PvE probably is the better of the two design angles to pursue as a primary focus.
This is coming from someone who jumped into WoW at release because it had a lot of PvE content, and seemed to be offering a somewhat substantial amount of PvP potential simply by virtue of being a Blizzard product as PvP is where I felt a lot of the "replay value" was going to be at. 
...then I got introduced to the progression treadmill. 
From my little corner of WoW, I know a number of people who play on PvP servers simply because that is where many of their friends are. I know a number of people who simply enjoy the way Blizzard implemented the PvE content and do some limited PvP on the side. I only know of a very limited number of people who play WoW for the sake of PvP and PvP alone.
So based on my non-scientific observations, I'm generally inclined to say that the PvP-centric crowd, while fairly substantial, doesn't represent anything close to a majority of WoW's player base. At best, I'd tend to say maybe 2 out of every 9 players are. So yes, that still works out to roughly 2 million current subscribers. However, while being PvP centric, many of them have other considerations as well, many like to PvE as well, many have good friends who play the game for PvE rather than PvP, and unless Warhammer presents a solid PvE game, they're not likely to lure and keep those players... Which means the social side of WoW is probably going to keep, or otherwise drive people to return to WoW because that is where their friends are at when they're playing an MMO.
But this is a discussion that could run around in circles forever, until the NDA for Warhammer is lifted, it is largely speculation as to its quality of gameplay for PvE as well as for PvP.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Warhammer eventually peak in the 2 to 3 million subscriber range, but I seriously doubt it is going to get far beyond that point.... And I also think it would probably peak comparatively early and then begin a somewhat substantial decline until stabilising in the sub-2 million subscriber range. |
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