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WoW - The Game That Seized the Globe
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:47 AM
from the i-do-all-my-stock-trading-in-gold dept.
from the i-do-all-my-stock-trading-in-gold dept.
The New York Times reports on the global appeal of World of Warcraft. An unmitigated success world-wide, the article examines why the title's U.S. roots haven't stopped it from succeeding abroad. From the article: "Perhaps more than pop music or Hollywood blockbusters, even the top video games traditionally have been limited in their appeal to the specific regional culture that produced them. For example the well-known series Grand Theft Auto, with its scenes of glamorized urban American violence, has been tremendously popular in the United States but has largely failed to resonate in Asia and in many parts of Europe. Meanwhile many Japanese games, with their distinctively cutesy anime visual style, often fall flat in North America. One of the main reasons Western software companies of all kinds have had difficulty in Asia is that piracy is still rampant across the region. Games like World of Warcraft circumvent that problem by giving the software away free and then charging for the game service, either hourly or monthly." Keep in mind that distribution and access rates are different in Asia than they are here in the states. The majority of WoW players pay an hourly fee, and didn't have to buy the box.
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Review: World of Warcraft 602 comments
Announced at the European Computer Trade Show in September of 2001, before Warcraft III had even reached retail shelves, Blizzard's Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game has commanded attention for years. World of Warcraft is a fantasy game like no other, with a unique spin on the genre and an intense attention to detail. The game was released last week after a six month long beta test capped off with a tremendous 500,000 person open testing period. Read on for my impressions of World of Warcraft as the game stands at Launch.
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WoW fits both markets (Score:2)
Warcraft and Blizzard are 2 of the biggest names in gaming in the US.
The combination hits a sweet spot for both markets.
p.s. when is someone going to make a Grand Theft Auto MMORPG!!!
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http://world4.monstersgame.co.uk/?ac=vid&vid=4701
What Oh What is WOW? (Score:2, Insightful)
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http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart1_files/Subscription s_8846_image001.gif [mmogchart.com]
It pretty much beats every other popular MMO out there combined. That's impressive.
Also, considering the expansion coming out, I'm sure that will attract either new players or players who quit before and then want to see what the Burning Crusade is about (new content, new characters, new spells, bug fixes, enhancements, etc).
Re:What Oh What is WOW? (Score:5, Insightful)
Popularity is about marketing and dumbing down, not quality.
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Re:What Oh What is WOW? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:What Oh What is WOW? (Score:4, Funny)
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Sad to see this a success. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everquest (afaik) started the trend and now with WOW pullings in Millions of $ each month, I know that it won't go away. I watch my friends throw money at all these games, one in particular had active accounts in: City of Heroes, WOW, and Everquest all at the same time! He let me try his account (in an attempt to get me hooked) and while the game and MMORPG aspect was fun, I dind't think it was worth the monthly fees.
So now, I stick to classics and Mame. I will never pay a monthly fee for a game.
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Re:Sad to see this a success. (Score:5, Insightful)
You missed the early nineties, when people payed by the hour, and in some cases by the minute, to play games like Legends of Kesmai. People ran up bills, some as high as hundreds and even thousands of dollars per month.
$15/month is a steal compared to that.
Even more, your average (non-MMO) gamer probably buys one boxed game a month, at least -- which runs about $50, these days.
Again, $15/month is a steal.
There are very few services out there that give you "All you can eat" for $15. And most of these games feature regular content updates -- so you're getting a little more than just the privalege of playing, for your money.
Running an MMO costs money. Constantly producing more content does too.
Parent
Re:Sad to see this a success. (Score:4, Informative)
In terms of content added since launch at no extra cost the list I am aware of goes something like:
Mauradon (5 player instance)
Dire Maul (3 5 player instances)
Molten Core (40 player instance)
Black Wing Lair (40 player instance)
Zul Gurub (20 player instance)
Ahn Quiraj (world event, 20 player instance, 40 player instance)
Naxxramas (40 player instance)
Various holiday event quests (Halloween, Xmas, Chinese New Year, Valentines day)
3 PVP Battlegrounds
Revamped map, new quest lines and faction options in Silithus
Several Dragons on the world map suitable for raid killing
New world PVP options
Darkmoon Faire
Additional quests in Feralas, Hinterlands and Searing Gorge mid-level zones
And a bunch of smaller tweaks, revamps etc.
All in all, compared to other MMOs it is a decent chunk of new content. Unfortunately for the last few patches the majority of additions have focused on the high end raider or PVP player.
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Re:Sad to see this a success. (Score:5, Insightful)
Enjoy your no gaming future gramps...
On the plus side I pay way less for game subscriptions than i do for the cable tv that i used to subscribe to, the weekly movies I used to go to...
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It is cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
$15 doesn't buy much nowadays in the entertainment world, a whole months worth of entertainment for $15 is a deal! (And if you play Everquest 1 year is $100! Less than $10 a month.)
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Not so sad (Score:3, Informative)
Social activities
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- Get online with your friends and go kill mobs as a gang (PvE).
- Make a party of player and wage war on another par
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Keep in mind those MAME games you are playing used to cost $.25 a play. No matter whether you lost the game in 30 seconds or could keep it going for an hour. The $15 someone spends on WoW a month is equivalent to 60 quarter drops in an arcade machine. Back in the '80s I would definately spend upwards of $10 during a single night at the arcade.
I love MAME too but in general unless you have a stack of arcade boards lying around
Slashdot finally learning to cash in... (Score:5, Funny)
Link & Thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
Pretend you're a news feed or printer and you too can read stories without inhibiting log-ins or advertisements!
Now, for my two cents, I like WoW. But I loved Star Wars Galaxies pre-CU. I had two accounts in that game. It had this special kind of social aspect to it where people were dependent on even the most mundane professions. On top of that, you could level by dancing in a cantina all day, simply chatting with people. The fighting classes had to come in to relieve fatigue and wounds. It was a great system that, in my opinion, could have been more popular than WoW.
In WoW, fighting is the only thing that gains prestige. All the best weapons are looted, there is no dependence on non-fighting classes nor is there such a thing. I think that if anything is going to surpass WoW at this point, it has to be something that so far out there that it's not even well defined yet.
One thing is sure, it needs to accomodate both fighting classes and socializing classes and keep them equally important.
Re:Link & Thoughts (Score:2)
Another WoW article 'stubbed' on the front page? (Score:3, Insightful)
Current adoption? (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason I ask is that when WoW first took off, they had a large number of new players constantly joining the game...but I have a hunch that they are starting to approach their plateau as the game matures and new games come out. Yes, the expansion will help, but its primary customers will be existing players, not new ones.
Anybody have any figures as to what games new players are flocking towards these days?
The Game that Seized My Time (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what did me in though?
Thanks to the glory that is mathematics, I found out that on average, I played for three hours a day. Worst part about averages, I don't even play on the weekdays that much (which means very VERY loaded weekends).
What a waste. Three hours of my life. Every single day! I could be learning how to juggle or searching for a significant other or reading a book or hacking! Something!
If you're like me... On the verge of quitting... And trying to look for that extra push... Look at
Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, and I loved playing it. But it's a lot. Moderation, please.
PS - I just bought Civ 4 (crack for crystal, I know). I don't get it.
Re:The Game that Seized My Time (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with WoW and EQ for me was the people I found myself hanging around with in game. Once you reach max level and get into the 'end game' making progress takes longer and longer at each step. Eventually you find yourself in a position where the only people really progressing in the game are basically no-life losers whose lives revolve around the game. I quit after an MC raid when people were comparing
So, maybe I'm wrong about
I don't have a problem with people playing WoW all day if that's their thing, anymore than I have a problem with people watching television all day. In fact, I think if you are going to sit on your ass that much you are probably better off playing just about any computer game instead of watching TV. I don't hang around people who watch TV all day either though.
I'd love it if I could keep playing the game, but the problem with all MMORPGS is this: most of the people with the who achieve the greatest end game accomplishments are the ones who do the least with their real lives. I don't hang around a bunch of do nothing no life losers in the real world and I don't want to do it online.
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Re:The Game that Seized My Time (Score:4, Informative)
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WoW has a policy not to delete inactive characters. If you want to resume paying them money, they want to make it as easy as possible.
Final Fantasy XI deletes inactive characters after 3 months. It's the only MMORPG I know of that doesn't want to try and regain customers who left, but it's an MMORPG and it deletes inactive characters. But it's an exception.
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I learned I have even less reason to try playing Final Fantasy XI today.
In other news.... (Score:3, Funny)
WoW saves me money! (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, here's something to consider. I save money because I play WoW - no joke. WoW is so fun and engaging and has new things for me to experience every time I sit down and play it...to such a degree, that I really don't play other games. I canceled my GameFly subscription, I don't buy games anymore - haven't bought a console in ages. I spend less money on games per year with my subscription to WoW than I did without it. I'll get to a point with WoW where I'm tired with it, and want to go back to my other games - but for right now, a subscription-based game is a money-saver for this gamer.
Wow.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of it's biggest problems:
* Lag.. it's a huge problem though they're working on it slowly.
* PvP. The honor system is setup such that some people actually go 6-8 hours or more a day, 7 days a week to make rank. This can get very unhealthy. They're addressing that with the expansion by removing the existing honor system and making it more people friendly.
* PvP survivability. Right now a decked out character can pretty much kill a person so quick that healing isn't an option. You basicly have level 60 characters running around with gear that should be for people 60+. Highest I think is around level 90 gear that only requires 60. One side of the coin says anyone can get it if they put the time in, other side is not everyone has the time. Either way it's easy for pick up groups to get totally steamrolled. Some are calling for normaling damage more so things arn't as whacked out as can be. The other thing is its neat to one shot someone but after a while that can get boring and you want something more challenging.
* Healers.. right now there's a signifigant lack of healers or high healer rotation. Thats most likely typical with any MMO. Who wants to stare at peoples health bars and fill them all day, every day? Very few. They need to set the end game class gear so for healers so it's not just good at the PvE but also PvP. Yeah you got huge healing bonuses but if your not damaging someone it's kinda prolonging the inevitable. A lot of people say, "Oh great, another heal set to grind for. Whoopie." and burn out.
* Epic gear isn't so epic anymore. Its to the point where gear thats suposed to be rare is actually everywhere practiclly. Take a walk through each factions heavly populated cities and you'd have a hard time not seeing druids that look like moose or deer with their suits. Warriors that look like pin cushions or axe heads. Still to some extent that can be a good thing in that more people get to see end game content to some degree.
* Customization.. you can't dye or paint your armor. It's as it always will be till you get a new piece. You also can't change your hair style or color. There are a lot of choices but your looking at static ones mostly.
* Twinking, botting, gold farming, it's all in there.
Some of it's biggest benefits...
* $15/month unlimited access gets you on any server with like 8 character slots per server. Server types range from PvP, PvE, RP, and RP-PVP.
* Little things. You don't just have epic dragons to slay, you have a wandering faire that travels between two factions cities. Fishing contests in neutral towns, some other factions hold festivals like the Lunar Festival from the druids common faction. These events have some nifty quests and rewards that are neat outside of the regular grind.
* RP... yes AAARRRPEEEE! There seems to be a very health RP community on the RP servers. You definatly have your share of arse-hats, catgirl and vampire wannabe's but it's there. Some people actually post some great stories and content about their characters. Why bother when you have PnP D&D, etc? Why not? You actually get to meet more people outside of your neck of the woods and get to hear some great stories and you don't have to give up the PnP D&D, etc.
* Cow people.. tell me it's not cool to be a cow, especially a cow with a big gun. You get to be part of the secret cow level. It's a playable race inspite of them telling you there is no cow level.
There's a lot of other pro's and co
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Find grues
Kill 15 grues and loot 15 grue spleens
Return
Repeat 20 times
Ding
Repeat 59 more times
You act like repetition is a new thing with the level 60 game. And I still play WoW.
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Apollo (Score:5, Funny)
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The downside is that two weeks is just not enough to really see what is possible in the game. If all you did was go back and forth from station to roid, you havn't really touched 99% of what the game has to offer.
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Oh please that is a flat out lie.
Rescue a knight from a dungeon. Then you walk through the alliance capital with said knight while every soldier you see salutes him. Several cutscenes happen. A certain political figure is revealed to be something very bad and a huge fight ensues after which you are charged to seek out said very bad person and kill them.
There are lots of exam
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If you look at the entire ony chain, it's composed of kill quests (both killing numbers of creatures and killing specific creatures to get specific quest items), and running around talking to NPCs. The only "twists" in the chain are 1) after you initially track down Windsor, you have to go back into BRD and find the crumpled note (there is no other indication that you have t
Re:Instance whoring at level 60 (Score:4, Interesting)
Find. Loot. Kill. Report back.
That holds true for 99.9% of MMORPGs out there. I honestly still don't know what people find so appealing about them.
Parent
As opposed to any other RPG? (Score:3, Interesting)
And don't get me started on other game types. FPS? Kill, kill, kill, find key, kill some more. Action-RPG? See FPS, but in a third person view and with melee weapons. RTS? Build X peons/harvesters/whatever, build a factory, click on build zergling/dwarf/infantry/whatever factory 20 times, rush. The only competition is finding the exact number of those t
Re:Instance whoring at level 60 (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Isn't life chore enough chore?
My peeve is that those games turn awfully quickly into chores - where you spend time with them not because it's fun, but only because you have to. There's a (fake) sense of accomplishment. That people like this and feel okay about paying for the privilege just blows my mind.
By the way, all of the above holds true for fucking aswell - i just happen to find it healthier!
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Re:Instance whoring at level 60 (Score:5, Insightful)
Videos in general:
It's an environment that I can interact with using my computer. There are normally tasks that I have to complete, and once it's all over, I haven't accomplished anything in Real Life.
Computers in general:
I used input devices (ie: keyboard and mouse) to interact with a program someone else wrote.
Life:
Wake up every day, eat, work, sleep, and repeat. Looking at life without taking in account the details of what goes on; it is a fairly trivial process.
Just because you didn't enjoy the type of entertainment that the game was providing doesn't mean it is pointless. Video games are a form of entertainment to help us relax and enjoy ourselves. If you don't enjoy, or stopped enjoying, a video game, you can replace it with another. Or you can go read a book, or rob a bank... something that entertains you.
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Re:Instance whoring at level 60 (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I don't do many quests these days. If I do any, they are usually related to the instance that I'm at the appropriate level to run. I spend my time running that instance, usually with people I've played with before but sometimes in PUGs. We try out different tactics, mix up the group makeup (e.g. try it without a main healer, try it with 3 mages, etc) to challenge ourselves. I also enjoy trying out the different combinations of race and class, exploring the different abilities and play styles.
Sure the hunting/gathering quests can be boring, but there's so much more to do - the game is so much more than the quests.
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Re:Instance whoring at level 60 (Score:5, Insightful)
I could be spending my time helping less fortunate people, or maybe working on an Open Source program that would benefit thousands of people. I may receive praise for such things, but what does this really do?
I think it's really a matter of what you want to do with your life. Do you care that in 20 years, you can look back and be like "Wow, I designed this amazing program that filled a need for 100,000 people." You will have this memory to satisfy yourself. You will be able to tell stories and brag about doing something "productive" for society.
Or, in 20 years, you can look back at the time when you played only video games. You can remember you had fun doing it, but did not accomplish anything with your life. You will have the memories of those games still, and the fun that you can while playing them.
Though it's not the same thing, I played one MMO for 12 months pretty hard-core. I stopped playing that game about 3 years ago. I can look back at the time I see some things where it hurt my social life. But at the same time, there were parts of the game that really provided pure fun and entertainment. You could say I get a warm-fuzzy thinking about the events and things that went on it the game. Not so much the facets of the game, but the people I interacted with in the game.
Some people feel that they have to help others, and do things beneficial to society, so they can be defined by society as being a productive member. And the only way they can satisfy themselves is to think that what they've done with their lives has made a difference (no matter if it really did or not).
Just because you think something is wrong, doesn't mean it is. Even if laws say that something is wrong, doesn't mean it is. I feel that psychology hasn't fully caught up with the concepts of MMOs, so they tend to be compared to drugs or other bad addictions.
Some work has been done to study the MMO trend, but it will be years before we can really know the effects it has on the world. It will be interesting to see how research projects like The Daedalus Project [nickyee.com] pan out over the coming years.
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Maybe he was referring to Asia! Where it may very well be given away for free... or at least very cheap...
But yeah.. I wan't my initial $50 back!
Re:Error in article text (Score:4, Informative)
WoW has different pricing model in some parts of Asia.
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If they didn't have a high bar to entry, then the game would be flooded with new players. The signup rate would be huge, but the renew rate would be minimal. This would be a nasty hit to the server load, without the corresponding revenue gains.