World of Warcraft Hits 9 Million Users

Wowzer writes "Blizzard today announced that their MMORPG World of Warcraft is now played by more than 9 million gamers around the world. From the article: 'That's half a million more than the number of monthly players WoW had back in March five months ago. — It's interesting to note that if the World of Warcraft were a nation, CIA's World Factbook says that out of 236 listed countries it would be the 90th most populated country on Earth above Haiti, but behind Sweden.' Also revealed this week was that DC Comics are creating World of Warcraft Comic Books based on the MMORPG, with the first issue appearing on November 14th. The ongoing monthly series will be written by industry veteran Walter Simonson (Thor, Orion) and feature art by Ludo Lullabi and inker Sandra Hope."

Yes...

[feepness]

...but what did it hit them with.

Re:

[mdm-adph]

A potentially relationship-ending addiction?

Re:Yes...

[thc69]

A potentially relationship-ending addiction?

I thought I was going to have to post that. Thank you.

Here's a few links for people who are worried about WOW addicts:
http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2006/10/view-fro m-top.html [blogspot.com]
http://wowdetox.com/ [wowdetox.com]
http://wowrecovery.com/ [wowrecovery.com]
http://deletewow.com/ [deletewow.com]
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/WOW_widow [yahoo.com]
http://www.wowrecovery.com/ [wowrecovery.com]
http://www.wowdetox.com/view.php?number=13640 [wowdetox.com]

http://www.joystiq.com/2005/06/23/boy-dies-after-1 2-hour-gaming-session/ [joystiq.com]
http://www.joystiq.com/2005/11/04/wow-online-funer al-commemorates-death-of-young-gamer/ [joystiq.com]
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195236,00.html [foxnews.com]
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/20/news_61278 66.html [gamespot.com]

Re:Yes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Addiction to things that are not physically addictive is a symptom of depression, not a disease in itself. These "video game" and "Internet" addictions should make that clearer than ever. It's time for us to gain a more nuanced understanding of the addictive process; our current understanding is based on a misguided attempt to eliminate addiction by elimination of chemicals that have been involved in addictions, and this has completely failed.

You will not find me a real WoW addict who is not depressed, and you will not cure anyone of depression simply by removing WoW.

Re:Yes...

[thc69]

You will not find me a real WoW addict who is not depressed, and you will not cure anyone of depression simply by removing WoW.

You are quite possibly right, but you missed one: You will never cure a WoW addiction simply by removing depression.

Are you sure?

[Grendel Drago]

Addiction to things that are not physically addictive is a symptom of depression, not a disease in itself.

Are you sure you don't have the battery plugged in backwards there? Isn't watching the circle of your life contract until it only contains you and your addiction pretty depressing in and of itself? (It sure sounds depressing. [addictionis.org]) Which came first? Does this apply to sex, gambling, or other addictions? Why do you feel that the nature of chemical addiction is different from other kinds of addiction, especial

pffft

[zmollusc]

I recall the same thing said about space invaders. Before that, it was probably tv.
One man's pastime is another's OCD.

Re:Yes...

[The One and Only]

Heroin is less time-consuming.

Re:

[OzoneLad]

Heroin is less time-consuming.

Depends on how much grinding you need to do to buy that next hit.

Re:Yes...

[StikyPad]

I'm sure there are millions of players who are perfectly functional, social, and productive members of society.

That said, I'm also sure there is a much higher portion of people who play compulsively, to the detriment of all else, in WoW and other MMO*s than in any other form of entertainment past or present. Anyone who's known someone who's played, and anyone who themselves has played, can name at least one person either in person or in game, who is online nearly every waking minute, habitually stays up well into the early morning, and/or neglects real world responsibilities for "play" time. Anyone who says otherwise is either a newbie, woefully naive, or willfully ignorant.

The parent is not a troll for pointing this out, and I can't help but wonder about the state of mind of people who dismiss the addictive nature of MMOGs out of hand. The problem, as I see it, is that much of the population has no experience with WoW, and is rightfully skeptical. The number of active players who will actually admit [wikipedia.org] the addictive nature of the games is small. But eventually the collective knowledge of society will better match reality, once enough people have been affected. 9M may sound large, but it's probably the number of accounts rather than unique individuals, and it's a worldwide number. Even if they're counting unique individuals, 0.05% of the population is orders of magnitude smaller than the margins of error for most polls.

Re:

[rufus t firefly]

Thanks, StikyPad.

I wrote something that wasn't intended to troll for karma, or make people laugh, and most people here look at it as a troll. That'll teach me to post an honest opinion on slashdot.

Re:

[blueg3]

Is there particular relevance in "x% of the population is orders of magnitude smaller than the margins of error for most polls". I mean, besides that being false (most polls have small samples sizes and errors of a few percent, some have tenth-percent error), the wrong units (sort of, margin of error is typically in percent, as are the poll figures, whereas 0.05% of the population is a number), this doesn't really seem relevant to your point of "most people disagree that MMOs are addictive, but I'm convince

Boredom is a protective mechanism.

[Grendel Drago]

We get bored, I think, so that we won't end up in situations like the WoW addicts, endlessly repeating a few short actions. We get bored so that we won't get stuck. It's a protective instinct. However it's done, MMORPGs are excellent at short-circuiting that. You have a quick succession of rewards at the beginning, and an endless series of ever more time-consuming tasks to be performed to achieve the same high that was at first so simple and so easy. I'm sure most addicts didn't start out intending to play

But not for lack of trying.

[Grendel Drago]

I think it's more that the average old lady could kick the ass of the average WoW addict.

Re:

[Midnight Ryder]

I think it's more that the average old lady could kick the ass of the average WoW addict.
While it makes for a good joke, I'm pretty surprised how much the WoW players I've been exposed to DON'T match that steriotype. Quick rundown of the people I know who play WoW. Brandon is 6' 5", and works out a lot (huge arms), owns his own plumbing company, and isn't generally a gamer. My ex-wife (and litterally all of her family) was anything but geeky - she was introduced to WoW by her step father, and got me int

Thanks.

[Grendel Drago]

I was expecting to get some over-defensive crap, maybe some Internet Tough Guy talking about how he could kick my ass, but that was actually pretty interesting. Do you know the relationship between the set of people who play WoW and the subset who play it addictively? Do you think that the obsessive-geeky stereotype is more likely to develop a gaming problem, or does it seem to hit people more or less randomly once they start playing?

Re:

[sqrt(2)]

Luckily, I dodge that bullet by not <i>having</i> a relationship in the first place.

Re:Yes...

[shoptroll]

Knowing blizzard:

Either a nerf bat or a ban hammer.

Re:Yes...

[Himring]

WoW just follows the rules of mmogs. These rules are:

You always try out-level, and never play with, your friends (no matter what the voiced intentions)

As soon as you finish that quest for that really cool item, a new one comes making it totally worthless

In pvp, if you're in an area where there's a remote possibility you'll get ganked, you will be

In pvp, if you're in an area where there's no way you'll get ganked, you will be

The smallest possible race will always be rolled as a tank, and be better at it than the biggest possible race

1 out of 3, no 2 out of 3 ... no, 3 out of 3 quests will, at some point, make no sense

You will always respec wrong

You will hate the game

You will not stop playing the game

You will wonder why you cannot stop playing the game

You will cancel your account

You will re-open your account

You will cancel your account

[ad infinitum]

The maker will always nerf your class

The maker will always buff your friend's class

You will sell your account for $x amount of money and feel you actually are a good business man (when, truth is, you invested 100x that much)

You will create a new account and character

You will tell yourself that it isn't so bad this time because you're so good at it

You will cancel your account

You will play another mmog and tell yourself and your friends how much better/different it is than the last

You will create a character on a role-playing server and never role-play (nor will anyone else; people who do rarely role-play are made fun of)

K, I'm done, someone take over....

Re:

[Mr. Bad Example]

> ...but what did it hit them with.

ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKEKE

No, you're not.

[ZombieWomble]

Every time there's a topic like this, people say that, and it's just wrong. Blizzard explicitly state in all of their press releases [blizzard.com] that anyone whose subscription has ended or been canceled is not counted.

Damn

[fliptw]

WOW is fast to hit that many people. I hope the injuries aren't serious.

9 million users or accounts?

[ArcadeX]

How many individuals? 9 million accounts, 6 million people?

Re:

[Avatar8]

The 9 million might actually be a very accurate number. While there are many individuals with multiple accounts as you suggest, there are likely just as many accounts with multiple individuals. My wife and I own one account each, but our daughters play on each of our accounts, so we're two accounts but four users. We know of several online friends who are siblings or spouses that share an account. I don't personally know of anyone who has multiple accounts.

Re:

[Alex777]

I would say that the effect you describe is actually much greater than users with multiple accounts. Since your character allotment is vitually limitless, the primary reason someone would want several accounts is for multiboxing. That is, playing two (or more!) characters at once. The only other reason I could think of is if you wanted cross-faction characters on a PvP server.

Re:

[pthor1231]

The situation in which you describe is the ONLY way, according to the ToS, that an account can be shared by more than one person. Technically, within the wording of the ToS, your wife is not able to play your account. While I doubt you are entirely unique, I don't think the number of people sharing their account with someone who they are legally responsible for comes close to matching up with people with multiple accounts.

Re:

[Adriax]

9 million accounts. 3 million belong to players, 6 million belong to farmers.

Re:

[0racle]

How many are accounts that are players that were banned on other accounts?

But like in any economy...

[vigmeister]

80% of them are farming gold for the upper 20% :) Gold farmers shouldn't count...

Cheers!

Class warfare?

[User 956]

80% of them are farming gold for the upper 20% :)

That just proves the realism of the game.

Re:Class warfare?

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

Since it's WORLD of warcraft, not DEVELOPED COUNTRY of warcraft, it should really be more of a 95/5 split

Re:

[The One and Only]

No, he would just nationalize the servers.

Re:

[zippthorne]

Based on his recent efforts at nationalizing the oil industry, a pretty unambiguous move toward full central planning, I'd say that Chavez is probably pretty pro-capitolism. He might not be very fond of capitalism though.

Overly pedantic perhaps, but in this case you've inadvertently invented a word that would mean almost exactly the opposite of what you intended.

MMORPG popularity

[Longtime_Lurker_Aces]

I find it fascinating that all the later, more popular mmorpg's seem to be far inferior to the "original": Ultima Online.

You could own a house, put vendors there to sell stuff, you had trade skills that were fully independent of fighting, you had an economy of "rare" artifacts with no use at all people just wanted them to have them, you could kill other players and take their gear.

And it was so much friendlier to the casual player: you could teleport to where your real-life friends were, you could play with your friends even if they played 40 hours a week and you played 2, you could macro when you were away to keep up with your friends or do things like craft armor to support a guild.

PvP made you actually have REAL friends and REAL enemies, instead of "You're an orc and he's an elf so you hate each other". It also made guilds have value, as you needed protection and could benefit from a guildmate making your armor while you made him potions.

Basically, I just can't stand that WoW is worse than UO in almost every way but has about 8.8 million more subscribers. UO was ahead of its time.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Meridian 59 and The Realm preceded UO. Not to mention The Shadow of Yserbius and, of course, MUDs.

Anyway, if you like UO so much, then stop referring to it in the past tense and go play it - it's still around, and the client was just overhauled.

Re:

[Nasarius]

Anyway, if you like UO so much, then stop referring to it in the past tense and go play it - it's still around, and the client was just overhauled.

Ultima Online was destroyed by the developers many years ago. Unsurprisingly, UO today bears little resemblance to the UO of 7-10 years ago.

Re:

[Sparr0]

I recall third party UO servers 3-4 years ago. Not sure if they go back 7+ though. Find one of them, play UO as you remember it.

Re:

[cHiphead]

Let us not forget the most kickass-ist of ALL, the original Neverwinter Nights, exclusively available to AOL customers. I spend many a dollars of my parents going past that $9.95/10 hour limit on AOL cuz I was cracked on NWN.

Sure, LoTR and U-something-that-had-whores-and-was-cooler (Usurper?) on dialup BBSes were hellafun, but NwN actually integrated graphics and made it all sexy. for the time.

Ever since I spent a month on UO and Everquest (I'm sorry, but if you were addicted to EQ you should be face stabb

Re:

[Kevin Stevens]

Indeed. When AOL went unlimited access I couldn't wait to just play NWN 24/7. I think it took all of two weeks before they started charging extra for games at that point.

It exists

[everphilski]

You could own a house, put vendors there to sell stuff, you had trade skills that were fully independent of fighting, you had an economy of "rare" artifacts with no use at all people just wanted them to have them, you could kill other players and take their gear.

EQ2 has everything but 'taking their gear'. EQ PVP servers have everything but 'owning a house'. Non-PVP EQ didn't have the gear stealing.
And it was so much friendlier to the casual player: you could teleport to where your real-life friends were, you could play with your friends even if they played 40 hours a week and you played 2, you could macro when you were away to keep up with your friends or do things like craft armor to support a guild. EQ has a cool system called shrouding, where a high-level player can 'shroud' into a different form and descend to a lower level; and change classes even. Its nice to play with friends leveling alts or, as you say, friends that aren't as hardcore.

Never played UO, I got sucked into EQ, just wanted to agree with you that WoW really is a dumbing down of the oldschool MMO's but that EQ offers basically everything UO offered, and is still alive and kicking (new expansion in a few months, baby! I think its #14 now ...)

Re:

[Broken scope]

EvE sorta has what he is describing, though I would say its a bit more ruthless.

Re:

[Broken scope]

2.4 million.

I made a char while drunk, so I look like a fairy and I have broken stats for what I want to do. Didn't really notice till about 2 mill.

Re:

[tibike77]

18.5 mil SP increasing 1.5 per month ;)
I really LOVE the skill system.

Re:

[everphilski]

I'll disagree with you on EQ2 having a better housing system than UO.

I don't believe I said it was better, I just said, they had a housing system. Personally, my poison of choice is Everquest (the original). I had hopes for Vanguard (which had an awesome crafting system) but it looks like it will descend into mediocrity, sadly.

Re:

[seebs]

I would never play UO, because I do not have any interest in a game where other people can kill me and take my stuff.

That's the thing; WoW has allowed me to play the game I want to play. No one else had it on offer, least of all had it on offer for Mac too so I could play with my spouse.

Re:

[Nasarius]

I would never play UO, because I do not have any interest in a game where other people can kill me and take my stuff.

The thing about UO was that there wasn't any awesome uber-gear that you had to invest massive amounts of time to get. Even dying with a full set of plate armor and a large bag of reagents wouldn't set you back more than a few thousand gold, which was trivial to get. I've heard that UO has changed since then to something more Diablo-like, but the truth is that in UO's heyday, death was rarely

Re:

[Avatar8]

Wrong on two counts:

- losing a full suit of armor could set you back quite a bit if you had a full set of valorite armor or any of the other colored, skill specific armors. Not to mention if you had rare, magical weapons that were found in dungeons.
- A few thousand gold trivial? Hardly. Only those who exploited, sold numerous rares or had been there since the server first powered up considered that trivial. To any player of a few months, that was equivalent to several days of killing and gathering.

Re:

[seebs]

I understand. The point is, I don't want it to "matter" in that way. I do not want a real sense of danger.

There was a triple murder a block from my house a month or three back. I am not in any way lacking for "real sense of danger", and I am not going to pay someone to provide me with one.

Re:MMORPG popularity

[Avatar8]

I totally agree. PKers almost drove me away from UO completely when it first began. I tried to get my wife interested, but she hated how vulnerable we were and how pointless PvP was in general. (you call friends, they call friends, everybody dies and loses gear and it just wastes your time instead of allowing you to play the game)

I showed her WoW during beta and she was curious. When I purchased it, she started a character and was hooked within a few hours. She went on a trip and came back home to find her own account waiting for her. We still play side by side to this day and show no signs of slowing.

Key point to WoW's popularity: it appeals to EVERY play style in some form or fashion.

But see you are wrong

[Sycraft-fu]

I get amused by the people that claim WoW is "inferior" because of its friendly environment and no-penalty PvP. Well it's not, that is actually what makes it superior to most people, and is the reason they have 9 million players. Most people aren't hardcore, they don't want a game that punishes them for failure, they don't want to have to deal with keeping up with those who make a game in to a life and so on.

If you want games like that, they are available. I'm made to understand EVE is such a game. Extremely hardcore, real loss, etc, etc. That's great if that's what you like, but don't pretend like it is "superior". One of the reasons WoW is so great is it treats things more like a single player game. When I die in a SP game I don't lose anything but time, I am set back to whatever my last save point was and must replay from there. The nearest MMORPG experience, since you can't reload, is to just have you have to wait a bit as you head back to your body. No loss of anything but time.

That's what has kept me interested in WoW. It is the 5th MMORPG I've tried (EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE, Starwars Galaxies) and the only one that has lasted more than 6-9 months or so. All the rest got boring fast for various reasons. For example in EQ the problem was it felt like they hated you. The game was setup to punish you severely for failure, and to be very unhelpful.

WoW gets it right for me, and for many others because it is extremely easy to get in to (I've never seen a more friendly start than WoW's newbie quests), doesn't punish you, and has lots to do for whatever it is you like doing. I realise that's not for everyone, but you need to realise that if a more hardcore experience is your preference that is a different preference, not a superior one. There is nothing wrong with wanting an easier, more friendly experience. After all, the whole point of games is to be entertaining. They are not for proving or accomplishing something, they are there to make you happy and let you have fun. Whatever it is that does that, that's what you should play. For 9 million of us (and counting) WoW is that kind of game.

Re:But see you are wrong

[theantipop]

These are very good points. Along with this, I will point out one area where WoW really has been revolutionary: the UI. If WoW got one thing gloriously right, it was their very moddable and customizable user interface via a LUA scripting system. I hope this catches on in future game's of a variety of genres, not just MMO's, because it really allows you remove the largest barrier in enjoying button-heavy and information spamming games.

Re:

[UnknownSoldier]

> I get amused by the people that claim WoW is "inferior" because of its friendly environment and no-penalty PvP.

Wow is inferior because it has:
* designers remaining completely _clueless_ about dead-time
* static story (where are all the GM events??)
* no guild banks, homes, or towns
* limited world interaction (blacksmith can't repair his armor, boats on "rails", almost nothing to interact with in the world -- everything is "locked" down.)
* limited crafting (no lumberjacking, you can't make furniture and

Re:

[arashi no garou]

One thing you said really stood out to me:

It is almost impossible to run into "griefers" (aside from occasionaly miners ninja-looting the ore nodes)

I will take issue with that statement. My only true pet peeve in this game is that same-faction griefing is completely ignored by Blizzard. If you are Alliance and a Horde steals a kill or a resource node, you can either settle it with PvP or just go your own way, and I am perfectly okay with that. It is balanced and it is more than fair; you are, after all, e

Re:

[king-manic]

I will take issue with that statement. My only true pet peeve in this game is that same-faction griefing is completely ignored by Blizzard. If you are Alliance and a Horde steals a kill or a resource node, you can either settle it with PvP or just go your own way, and I am perfectly okay with that. It is balanced and it is more than fair; you are, after all, enemies. However, if you are Alliance and another Alliance follows you around, kill-stealing, trying to take nodes from you, ninja-skinning you, there

Re:

[Spikeles]

How can you steal kills?

You are a mage, you start casting pyroblast. It takes 6 secs to cast, at the 5th second, some rogue or hunter puts in a single stab or arrow, he tags it, it's now his kill, your pyroblast then hits and you get all the aggro because you did more damage. If your pyroblast does in the order of 4k damage like mine, you can one-shot a monster. Hence, he stole your kill. Also applies to other dots like Shadow Word:Pain. It doesn't tag a monster as soon as it's put on, so if you cast it on

Re:

[arashi no garou]

Excellent points, and I agree with everything you wrote. My two cents is that, while WoW is very friendly especially to the casual player (which is why I still play), it can also reach the level of "serious and complicated" that its predecessors attained. It all depends on how much time and effort you are willing to throw at it. For example, my jobless girlfriend, who incidentally got me into the game, plays around 4-8 hours per day, every day. She rattles off end-game instance names, factions, armor sets e

Re:

[goldspider]

Summary:

UO is better because -I- like it! And it makes me real mad that so many stupid people disagree with me!! WAAAAAAAAHH!!

Seriously, what happened to different people having different tastes? And how does this childish rant get modded up?

Yeah, Ultima Online was Better...

[Greyfox]

Except in its interface, which always sucked...

And its crafting system, which required a ton of grinding out the same crap over and over again for a .1 skill gain (I GMed blacksmithing, bowcrafting and tailoring on several characters over there.) And you still couldn't create an item that was as good as various world drops you could find.

And the constant griefing, from the flock of pickpockets at the bank before the Trammel split to the flock of PKers who kept a stranglehold on the dungeons on the PvP s

Re:MMORPG popularity

[Avatar8]

Being a 7.5 year UO vet, I think I can address this.

Many aspects of UO were ahead of its time. It could have been a fantastic MMORPG that would have reached millions of players, but too many factors prevented that from occurring.

- Garriott's vision of a dynamic online world never reached fruition. The ecology system never really worked (animals preying upon other animals to keep the spawn rate down). It does work in WoW, and it's fascinating to watch monsters fight each other.
- Garriott (and Raph's) vision was too dependent upon players "playing nice" and wanting to be a moral, socially upright group. What they didn't count on was how some people feel they have the right to be complete and total a-holes because they're hidden behind the anonymity of a game character.
- The economy was ruined... by players. Greed, immorality and the desire to simply ruin the experience for others drove exploiters to imbalance the money system. Granted WoW has its share of gold exploits and problems with people selling their gold farming "services," but it's not nearly as skewed as UO was after the first two years.
- The PvP system was ruined... by players. Instead of a fair playing field where everyone has an equal chance, it turned into a predator/prey system where crafters gathered resources and fighters took it away. I despise PvP, but WoW is so well balanced and has such few penalties I'm considering participating. If it's attractive to a pacifist like myself, I imagine it's remarkable to those that enjoy PvP. If someone kills another player for gear, they're playing and killing for the wrong reason, IMO.
- The classless system was unique and allowed some flexibility, but still you ended up in a niche of "warrior, caster or crafter." I knew of numerous players who started out going one direction only to discover they had wasted their time and needed to go a different direction. I lost count of how many times I "respecced" my main character. Having grown up playing D&D, I prefer the class style.
- EA prevented UO from reaching it's potential numerous times. 1)Pushed Garriott out. When you get rid of the person with the vision, how do you know where you're going? 2)Lost the "Ultima" in "Ultima Online." I'm sure you probably played the series, too. Didn't you want to see more correlation with the series stories? There were two major attempts to bring that content to UO, but EA killed them. Then they brought in Todd McFarlane to add his touch. Another major mistake there. 3)There were also multiple attempts to overhaul the game entirely, but EA wouldn't hear it because it might endanger their constant cash flow if some players decided to jump ship if they had to start over. I would have stayed because there was nothing better than UO for several years (tried DAoC, AC, AO. EQ sucked from the outset, so I never needed to try it.)

To your points:
- Crafting skills in WoW are just as separated from fighting as they were in UO. In order to gather resources, you must be able to face the wilds and at least fight enough to defend yourself from roving monsters. Otherwise a crafter can stay in town safe from harm.
- WoW also has a few rares, but they are not exchangeable which I prefer. My pets from my Collector's Editions make my account fairly valuable. Since I cannot foresee my future of not playing WoW, I have no intention of cashing in.
- I do hope WoW implements housing, but I hope they do it correctly. I despised how UO just allowed players to ruin the landscape and affect the monster and resource spawns. I had even sent the designers several suggestions of having housing servers with teleporters to keep the land pristine. If WoW does add housing, I'm sure it will be a separate server that would not affect the current world.
- I liked having my vendors sell my wares while I was away, but I did not like having to keep them stocked and paid whether they sold anything or not. I much prefer the Auction House in WoW.
- WoW has a very similar, and I think more robust, soc

Re:

[Jaeph]

"If someone kills another player for gear, they're playing and killing for the wrong reason, IMO."

Then your opinion is wrong! :-)

Seriously now, why do different groups of geeks engage in poking fun at other geeks like this? It's silly! Carebear! Ganker! Waaaaaaahhhhhhh!

WoW is a fantastic game. It may not be everyone's cup of tea (I'm not playing anymore), but that doesn't make it bad. But that doesn't make other games bad either. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.

-Jeff

Re:

[geminidomino]

You're obviously content with the size of your dick, and as such, are not the target demographic for PVP.

Re:

[brkello]

Yes, losing all your stuff is much more friendly to casuals. Huh? I think you are looking UO through rose colored lenses. Back in the day...everything was better!

Re:

[CodeBuster]

All of these features have been implemented and implemented better in other games (Dark Age of Camelot and Everquest come to mind). The one thing that was nice about the *original* Ultima Online was the PvP system where anyone could kill anyone at any time and for any reason whatsoever. However, even UO was forced to nix that "feature" because of whiners who didn't understand the benefits of text chat spammer and loot farmer control. Among the things that UO did worse than just about everyone else was *hous

Re:

[Jeian]

You're substituting "far inferior" for "has gameplay I don't like".

I, personally, *like* not having to worry about losing something I spent hours in Karazhan to get, because I got ganked by a another player while I was at 25% health.

I, personally, would rather have Blizzard spending time on interesting content than on giving me a house to play interior decorator in.

Don't you think it's rather telling that all these "inferior" MMORPGs are more popular than UO? Maybe they aren't so "bad" after all.

Re:

[geekoid]

"...more popular mmorpg's seem to be far inferior to the "original": Ultima Online."

hahasnorthehe"You could own a house"
and have it robbed immediately, or need to get someone to maintain it when you went on vacation.

"ou could kill other players and take their gear."

Thats considered a down side by most current mmorpg users

"you could teleport to where your real-life friends were"
you can in WOW.

"you could play with your friends even if they played 40 hours a week and you played 2, "

Pfft. Thats not true at all.

Re:

[Nasarius]

Owning a house thing seems like fun, except that it would be limited to actual realestate. Newer players would not enjoy this wonderful feature.

UO solved this later on by adding more land mass.

Seperate trade skills, Ultima Online was first, but there are many MMOs that have this.

Which other MMOG allows me to be *just* a master blacksmith/miner, without fighting endless monsters to level up? That's what UO let me do.

And if you want an item of no use just cause you wanted it, that is called loot-whoring.

Uh

Is played or has been played?

[bigtangringo]

I haven't given Blizzard a dime in several months now. I'd imagine they're still counting the folks who used to play, but no longer do.

Re:

[alexgieg]

Nope. Non-paying accounts, such as inactive accounts (in countries where it's charged per month), accounts not played in the last 30 days (in countries where it's charged per hour), and trial accounts, aren't included in the total. This 9,000,000 number is really for active, paying accounts only.

Re:Is played or has been played?

[Anonymous Coward]

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

Taken from http://www.blizzard.com/press/070724.shtml [blizzard.com]

Re:

[CaseCrash]

That's half a million more than the number of monthly players WoW had back in March five months ago

It's even in the summary. So, currently paying customers.

Re:Is played or has been played?

[Mascot]

Perhaps you could quote the part of the article which defines that for me.

I'll do the honors.

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

Source: http://www.blizzard.com/press/070724.shtml [blizzard.com]

Apologies on behaf of the poster you replied to. He shouldn't expect anybody to actually click through to the Blizzard press release. This is Slashdot, after all.

Re:

[truesaer]

What I can't figure out is the distinction between an individual who is within their free month of access and one who is playing under a free promotional subscription. What are these free promotional subscriptions? A lot of people are interpreting it to mean any trial but that is obviously not the case. I guess it means the temporary CD-Keys you can give to friends.

At any rate, one reason it seems there are so many people playing is that in Asia (and probably other areas of the world) you pay by the hour

Comic endeavor

[RobTFirefly]

Each issue of the WoW comic's gripping storyline will be interrupted by the characters running around shouting misspelled racist and homophobic epithets at the reader for two solid pages.

Re:

[theantipop]

More likely, it will feature numerous Chuck Norris jokes intermixed with linking [Foror's Compendium of Dragonslaying].

Re:

[Aceticon]

I wonder how they'le deal with the poignant issues surrounding sexuality in WoW, for example naked elf dancing contests in Ironforge ...

Re:

[GaryPatterson]

And every time the comic has a major, world-changing event, the world resets after a few minutes, the evil overlords respawn and things return to normal.

"Oh look! There's the evil monster xxxx! Kill it!"

(a short time passes)

"Oh look again! There's the evil monster xxxx again! Kill it again!"

(repeat until subscription ends)

Re:

[Macgrrl]

or the "/t has Aids" meme that was running rampart on Proudmoore 18 months ago...

I Know Nothing of WoW, but...

[rhartness]

I knew WoW was a HUGE MMORPG and that's about it but if my calculations are correct 9M Active Accounts * $10/monthly subscription fees(that's my guess, I don't know the actual figure) * 12 Months = $1.08 Billion a year! Holy Cow, that's insane!

Re:

[theantipop]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_warcraft#Pri cing [wikipedia.org] As you can see the pricing structure, especially in Asia, is very fluid. They're pulling in a lot of cash, but not nearly as much as you calculated.

Re:

[everphilski]

$15.00ish a month for US subscribers, not sure about EU. But the chinese, etc. do not pay nearly that much... they pay about $0.04 an hour. And the Chinese account for an excess of 5M subscribers. source [gigaom.com]

Re:

[vux984]

I WISH we had hourly pricing options here. I'd play WoW and other MMORPGs under that system. As it is everytime I look at another mmorpg... its a proposition of either either cancelling the game I'm already playing and enjoying, or splitting my time between two games -- but paying full rate for both... meaning my effective value/hour is halved... and I end up resenting it. If I could pay-as-you-go I'd happily play 2-4 games on a regular basis.

Altenratively, these guys (especially the smaller ones) should te

What's the metric?

[warmgun]

How did they measure this number? Is this number of accounts created or number of current active accounts? I'm guessing its the former, where someone like myself (who hasn't played in months) would be included.

Yet Somehow...

[SQLz]

There are only 9 million players but 11 million night elf hunters. Go figure.

What is World of Warcraft

[zussal]

Am I out of touch, what is this World of Warcraft thing?

Re:

[MooseMuffin]

"Butters go buy World of Warcraft, install it on your computer, and join the online sensation before we all murder you."

Re:

[Glowing Fish]

The best way to explain it is if you took every Everquest joke ever made, and they weren't jokes, and you doubled them, you would have World of Warcraft.

Highly Inflated

[Zanthor]

I would wager that this number is highly inflated...

Personally, I own and maintain 3 accounts and my girlfriend has her own as well, so 2 players, 4 accounts... If you take a look at my guild of 50+ active members you will find an impressive roster of well over 200 characters many of which are on seperate accounts. I know I have at least 15 players with more than one account, and our biggest account holder is sitting around 8.

Take a look at Dual Boxing [dual-boxing.com] and evaluate how many multi-account users there are out there... Many claim (and have video proof) of 5 [dual-boxing.com], 10 [dual-boxing.com], and even 50 [gameslah.com] boxes running at a time... with one of the contributors to the community boasting over 200 wow accounts [dual-boxing.com] on one server...

I figure that without even counting farmers, we have made a significant notch in the 9 million number...

Re:

[mikeabbott420]

I expect there are also single accounts shared by multiple people.

Re:

[Zed2K]

How is this inflated? A paying account is a paying account no matter if it is owned by the same person or not. I don't think they mean the number of people playing but instead the number of subscribers.

Re:

[pezpunk]

unless you can supply some kind of evidence that more people own more than one account than share an account with others, your statement is false.

yeah but...

[to_kallon]

It's interesting to note that if the World of Warcraft were a nation, CIA's World Factbook says that out of 236 listed countries it would be the 90th most populated country on Earth above Haiti, but behind Sweden. i pasted this to a friend who pointed out that while the taxes are much lower the death rate is significantly higher...

In other news...

[I. C. Wiener]

The Department of Education reports 9M new drop-outs.

Åh nej!

[Sobieski]

De är ikapp oss! Börja kopulera för guds skull!

Re:WTF?!

[Jugalator]

English only in general. Reported

Reported? Are you serious?

Anyway, in Swedish: "They have caught up with us! Start copulating for god's sake!"

In seemingly unrelated news...

[r_jensen11]

Bedpans have been selling in record numbers, despite orders from hospitals and hospices declining over recent years.

*Mom! Bathroom, bathroom!*

My experience with WoW

[TheRistoman]

I gave into it two Summers ago, since most of my gaming friends were wayyy into it already and gave me a free trial account. I have to say that until then I resisted the urge and was mostly uninterested with the game altogether. Then I started playing quite intensely. After 20 8-hour sessions or so, questing hardcore and reaching level 30 with a Rogue and 25 with a Fire Mage, I realized that the amount of time needed to level shot up exponentially, and also realized that I had a real life and classes to worry about (having a girlfriend also helped... and no, not a cyber girlfriend, thank you very much). Soon after that I was turning down my friends' request to log in because I knew I'd be giving up the rest of my day(s). A few months later one of my friends did decide he was addicted and had to erase all of his characters (not an easy task if you knew the kind of gear he had), cancel his subscription, uninstall the game and give away the CDs. I understand that now he has found a healthier balance of WoW and real life. Many props to him.

I also tried getting back to it, putting in a few hours a week. Unfortunately once you get past a certain point, a few hours a week won't get you anywhere and I think that's the biggest fallacy in WoW. Games shouldn't turn into full time jobs just to keep up, and if you're a fresh player you're gonna have to put in that kind of time. On the other hand, CounterStrike is a game that you can play 30 minutes a day and get your fix. Heck, I'd recommend Diablo II any day of the year over WoW. It only gets time consuming on Act 5 the third time around...

Re:

[brkello]

Obviously you have not played many MMORPGs. Leveling in WoW is extremely fast...even at higher levels. Are you going to keep up with friends that have no lives? Of course not, but a few hours a week will get you somewhere fine if you know what you are doing. The problem is that a lot of people don't understand that the fun is in the journey, not in maxing out your character. If you don't view it as a race (and you shouldn't, you won't win it) and just a game...it is a lot of fun.

Woo hoo!

[geminidomino]

And the remaining 5.991 Billion people *still* don't give a fuck.

Ahh, perspective...

9 million paying accounts

[Sycraft-fu]

They mean they have 9 million accounts that are either active subscriptions (for countries that pay monthly like the US) or accounts that have paid to play recently (for countries that pay for play time like China). Translated in to dollars that's somewhere in the 1-1.5 billion dollars in terms of revenues (the precise amount depends on the breakdown of accounts since they don't all cost the same).

Re:'poopsock' tag? wtf

[Main Gauche]

I had to look it up [urbandictionary.com], myself.