World of Warcraft For The Win

In a press release from their website, Blizzard has announced that World of Warcraft has won. Or, more specifically, that the game "has surpassed 1.5 million paying customers in China - just a month following the game's commercial launch on June 7, 2005. The critically acclaimed World of Warcraft has now achieved another significant milestone as the largest MMORPG in the world, with more than 3.5 million global customers." Relatedly, Gamespy's OnLife column this week centers around the WoW duping story that we touched on earlier. From the article: "Needless to say, many players are a bit incensed that Blizzard isn't taking this as seriously as they feel it should. Others, though, are convinced that there isn't any duping actually going on. It's an urban myth, they say, which gullible forumites are unwittingly perpetuating."

1.5million subscribers in China?

[kutsu119]

Never mind duping ITEMS, I think Blizzard must be duping Chinese players! No WONDER there are so many server crashes, bloody Blizzard's customer duper team (the duperheros)

Poor reading

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read "World" "War" and "China" and thought Here we go again!

good for china

[tont0r]

great. that means that there are 1.5 million chinese that have lost their jobs and houses because they spend all day playing this game.

One name that will always live in infamy

[olu]

LEEEERRRRRRROOOYYY!

I wonder how many subscibers

[cprincipe]

Are actually farmers?

Can you say SCAM?

[jim_v2000]

Seriously people...would you trust someone who told you this?

"Hey man, I'll hold all of your money while you log off/on to dupe it!"

Re:Dupe exists... sad farmers

[Rhys]

No, it just means that as soon as someone translates the dupe bug to chinese the farmers are going to be doing it.

Hey editors!

[RingDev]

You miss-spelled "Teh". -Rick

Lance Armstrong controversy again?

[Sloppyjoes7]

So, there's rumors that Lance's avatar has been duping? Hasn't there been enough speculation and testing?

That's what happens when you launch in Europe - They start accusing the Americans of using high tech duping methods that get past the officials.

Look. If Blizzard says he's not duping, he's not.
Get over it.

Dupe me too!

[Gettinglucky]

Seeing the fact that WoW has zero character customization and 90% of people look the same as the other person there must have been a character dupe on the first days. Now people just want to make sure that all the identical look characters have all the same weapons so they do not look different!

Re:Good work

[StreetChip]

"running past other players without paying any attention to them, except in the rare case that a fight breaks out or you need someone's help to finish a quest or kill some dude?" Thank you, you just summed up real life.

Re:One name that will always live in infamy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, indeed. I was playing Guild Wars a night or two another and someone said, "Let's take this carefully. Don't anybody be a Leroy!"

So what happened? Someone did exactly what Leroy did....argh!

Re:good for china

[jjohnson]

I think you mean "there are 1.5 million chinese that have houses because they have jobs playing Wow all day".

Re:Eh?

[demachina]

Personally I suspect the introduction of WoW in to China is the first, long overdue, step in a U.S. counterattack against the imminent Chinese domination of the global economy.

If we can get a few hundred million people in Chinese spending all day everyday addicted to grinds their economic productivity will crater and it will level the playing field with the West where everyone has been wasting all day everyday playing FPS's and dungeon crawls for a while now, which is a key, albeit relatively new, component in why Western economic productiviy and education is cratering. It was due to TV originally but TV is boring, and doesn't have the Pavlovian grip on people games do, so now everyone squanders their lives playing games to no productive end (unless you are eeking out a living farming and selling gold on Ebay).

Wash Your Hands!

[DLWormwood]

Adding more distinguishing facial features would be a huge improvement as well -- being able to pick your nose...

Well, being an MMORPG, the game allows you to pick your friends, therefore you shouldn't be able to pick your nose (or your friend's nose)

Sorry, couldn't resist the opening...

24 hours into the future

[spyrral]

[09:38] [e-mail]: dude, this slashdot convo is surreal
[09:38] [e-mail]: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/21/ 1341215&tid=209 [slashdot.org]
[09:55] ephardtthatcher: what's the big deal?
[09:55] [e-mail]: it's an argument about chinese gold farming
[09:55] [e-mail]: straight cyberpunk
[09:56] ephardtthatcher: hahaha
[09:56] ephardtthatcher: amazing
[09:57] [e-mail]: the funny thing is, I read a short story about this basic subject that was set like 10 years in the future.
[09:57] [e-mail]: you know what's next right?
[09:57] [e-mail]: vigilante anti-farming groups
[09:57] [e-mail]: then labor organisers
[09:58] [e-mail]: the the farming companies start hiring mercs to protect the farmers
[09:58] [e-mail]: oh god
[09:58] [e-mail]: I'm rock hard.
[09:59] ephardtthatcher: Anda's Game?
[09:59] ephardtthatcher: I loved that story.

Re:Dupe exists... sad farmers

[endx7]

See, now you are just making it hard to identify as a fake. At least with the other one you could easily tell. :P

Re:Dupe exists... sad farmers

[dilvish_the_damned]

Maybe its the monitor he was using useing...

Re:1.5million subscribers in China?

[mbius]

Never mind duping ITEMS, I think Blizzard must be duping Chinese players!

*Limit one per household.