WoW still selling strong.

[bert123]

http://www.megagames.com/news/html/pc/wowstillsellingstrong.shtml


Blizzard has announced that World of Warcraft has now surpassed the 1.5 million subscriber mark. The game is continuing to break recors after record and has proved that it can go beyond its impressive launch sales figures in North America, Korea, and Europe. World of Warcraft has reached global peak concurrency – the number of subscribers playing at the same time in each market – of more than 500,000 players.

Since its debut in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has launched to critical and commercial success in Korea and Europe, exploding in popularity across the globe. In the span of a few short months, World of Warcraft has achieved record-breaking milestones, including:

Europe:
- Over 290,000 account creations and 180,000 peak concurrency in its first weekend.
- Over 500,000 active subscribers, and 230,000 peak concurrency to date.

Korea:
- The most successful 100-day launch of any MMORPG in Korean history since its commercial release on January 18, 2005.
- World of Warcraft is currently played in 75 per cent of Korean Internet Game Rooms (IGRs), the primary venue for playing games in Korea. IGRs subscribe directly to MMORPGs and then players buy blocks of time from the IGRs for game time.

North America:
- Over 200,000 subscribers and 100,000 peak concurrency achieved in the game's first 24 hours.
- Current subscriber base of over 800,000 players.

Blizzard Entertainment is now focused on preparing the game for launch in additional regions in Asia and firming up service support in existing data centers. World of Warcraft is scheduled to launch in China in 2005, where 100,000 applications for the limited open beta were registered in just the first hour of signups on February 28, 2005. Launches in Taiwan and other regions are scheduled to follow closely thereafter.




Damn. Who would've thought WoW would be Blizzard's money maker?

[Simon Charles]

It's so popular patches are a goddamn pain, even worse than when everyone jumped on the latest CS update.

WOW has been trying to update itself for 36 hours now. Can't connect, can't download. The servers are getting slammed. Even the official website died.

It's a relatively major update, taking the game from v1.24 to 1.3. Three new dungeons, lots of balances and tweaks, etc. I won't be playing for two days.

[Sailboat]

Seems as though everything is back to normal.
Along with the new dungeons and fixes, seems they implemented some new graphic options. Something like lighting bloom was added, and IMO makes it look a lot better. Also when you go under water, it actually looks like water, not just blue.
WoW owns me.

[Mountain Man]

I would love to give WoW a try, but I can't swing that monthly fee.

[Simon Charles]

Sailboat said:
Seems as though everything is back to normal.
Along with the new dungeons and fixes, seems they implemented some new graphic options. Something like lighting bloom was added, and IMO makes it look a lot better. Also when you go under water, it actually looks like water, not just blue.
WoW owns me.



Bloom was there since day one. Haven't seen any differences graphic-wise. As for water, haven't gone for a dip yet.

I love the new action bars. This is perhaps the most useful feature implemented. It's a wonder they didn't think of it sooner. And the new speech bubbles make the whole thing look cooler.

[DLT]

I was going to buy it as it comes with a months free trail so if I don't like I wouldn't have to pay any extra and could simply stop playing it.

But no shops in the uk are selling it they are all sold out it would seem.

And there going on ebay for a huge £60 thats almost 2 times the price it should be!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11047&item=8179525092&rd=1

[Beelze]

Mountain Man said:
I would love to give WoW a try, but I can't swing that monthly fee.


And I wish the days were longer. Then I'd play for sure.

[Synti]

DLT said:
But no shops in the uk are selling it they are all sold out it would seem.




Yup, same problem here in Finland. I was lucky to get it on the launch day. Shops aren't getting enough copies because they seriously underestimated the vastness of the fanbase. The amount that was sold in the first day was though to the be the whole size of the community! Now all my friends are trying to get it but in vain. "Sold out, next shipment coming next month" and all the internet shops show their status on WoW as -300 http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Blizzard is getting some serious dough out of this.

[BioHazard]

1.5 million subscribers??!!?? So Blizzard would be making something like $15 million a month. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif (assuming $10/month, not sure what the fee is)

Obivously the servers + development time cost money, but as far as I see it that's probably a fraction of what they're making. No wonder so many companies want to hop on the MMO bandwagon.

[Mountain Man]

Yeah, they could drop the fee to less than $5/month and still walk away with a boatload of money.

[Opus131]

Simon Charles said:
Bloom was there since day one. Haven't seen any differences graphic-wise. As for water, haven't gone for a dip yet.




It was there but it never worked right.

Turning the bloom effect on would reset the game resolution to 640x480 and turn off all AA options.

Now it's working correctly, and it looks gorgeous...

[Spyd]

Warning to everybody:

DO NOT buy that kind of game from eBay. Buy it at retail. More than half the copies not sold at retail have the serial number used, so THEY ARE USELESS.

About the game, I got to play the european beta, and got hooked. It's perfect. I even stopped playing City of Heroes (I stopped paying, too), and bought the final game the first day was released.
Here in Spain the game is sold-out almost everywhere, but I found a store that had 3 left and bought one for a friend of mine.
They say that in one or two weeks there will be new copies in stock everywhere (at least in Spain)

[FireFly]

I guess this is the title that proves the strength of the PC platform.

[bert123]

Gilgamesh said:
1.5 million subscribers??!!?? So Blizzard would be making something like $15 million a month. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif (assuming $10/month, not sure what the fee is)

Obivously the servers + development time cost money, but as far as I see it that's probably a fraction of what they're making. No wonder so many companies want to hop on the MMO bandwagon.



Actually I think it's 14$ a month. So that means, 14X150000= 21 000 000 http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

[Sailboat]

There are different subscription packages.
If you pay by-monthly it is $15.
I know that paying every 6 months equals to $10 a month.
Blizz should decrease the monthly fee to at least $10 per month, taking into account all the problems the servers have every week.

[laffer]

A guy I know considers to quit playing the game. Blizzard billed a hotel instead of him when his free month had expired. Naturally, he thought someone had gotten his credit card code or something and closed his credit card account. Now he has to go through a lot of trouble to get it opened again, and all Blizzard did to compensate was to say sorry.

[wieder]

Simon Charles, dude, you need to clear out some of your private messages. I've been trying to reply to you for a couple of weeks now but you've reached your limit.

Oh, and WoW rocks... mmm yummy goodnes... but I don't play anymore because I can't justify the time.

[Beelze]

NotWieder3DR said:
Oh, and WoW rocks... mmm yummy goodnes... but I don't play anymore because I can't justify the time.


Well, that's good considering you should be busy Not working on DNF.

[Night Hacker]

LOL Beelze, excellent reply. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Pansa]

Mountain Man said:
I would love to give WoW a try, but I can't swing that monthly fee.


dont give it a try as long as you want to retain ANY life beyond that game..

i didnt buy it because of the open beta ..

just dig up the addicted to WOW thread...
its just INSANE..

right now , i only play on weekends at my "homebase" and cant play it at my "dorm" but majorly im thinking about playing it the next weekend .. this game is just a spawn of satan privatlife wise

[laffer]

Haha, you're absolutely right! I've had the game for less than a month, and already I've played more than 10 days (1 day = 24 hours).
Insane stuff!

[Simon Charles]

right now , i only play on weekends at my "homebase" and cant play it at my "dorm" but majorly im thinking about playing it the next weekend .. this game is just a spawn of satan privatlife wise



Funny, I know how to say spawn of satan in german. At the office, the door to my linguistics room had a crappy handle and would never work. I asked my boss (who's german) to rename the door handle "spawn of satan". So she did, and now I say Satansbrut all the time. Might not be the correct spelling, but it's become a favourite word of mine.

And the WOW is strong on my system.

[Pansa]

Simon Charles said:
[QUOTE]
Satansbrut



never heard the expression , but would be correct , i suppose...

id prefer the term "Teufelswerk" which would backtranslate "deed of the devil" .. but , thats just me

[Simon Charles]

Well, I'm sure I spelled it wrong so it might not look right.

Played some WOW after supper. Finally joined a guild that would accept me even if I don't play often. My friend runs it, and she's a lvl 60 priest. Everybody likes her. We're gonna do a Gnomeregan run tomorrow and she's gonna grind me into a few levels.

[Pansa]

spellings fine, just not that common an expression http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

weekendsession was cut short for me , so i didnt load up on herbs ...

didnt level as much as i wanted , ashenvale is a badass of a scattered place,

i like the barrens more , due to the fact that one could roundup on some quests going into the same direction..

this dreaded shreddermanual is hogging most of my inv space adding the herbs to that makes it quite nasty.

best place to farm for stranglekelp though,
though i must say i made quite a bargain on some bags first jumping to 8 slotbags 4 s a piece , tahn shifting to 10 slotters for aprox 30 s

i still use to laugh my ass of about how well blizzard has included the ebayfeeling into the AH..

sometimes you want to cry out for some things you consider "worth it" not selling...
on other times you are just CRUSHED for what things go for...

during last week i sold several 5erstacks of lesser defnce potions for 40s (no buyout, forgot it...)..... while the other lowlevel buffs wouldnt go for 3 s (buyout).....

people in the AH are INSANE...

[PlayfulPuppy]

I'd dearly love to play this game, but like others I cant wrap my head around monthly fees and I sure as hell dont want to cut into my time any more than I do.

Oh yeah, that and I hate people. I'm not too sure that'd work in a large online community.

[Sheikah]

I'm still sitting and waiting with my damn pre-order receit... I'll hav to wait til April the 15th. to get the damn thing because of a delay from blizzard (according to a danish homepage...)

[Vexed]

but like others I cant wrap my head around monthly fees

I think the fact that you get more than a single player game's worth of playtime out of it each month was a pretty good arguement. It's like paying $10 instead of $60 or whatever. Prolly doesn't hold true for everyone, but still.

[Simon Charles]

PlayfulPuppy said:
Oh yeah, that and I hate people. I'm not too sure that'd work in a large online community.



Just quest solo and treat other people like NPCs.

Or work on yourself and start liking people. We're really not that bad, you know. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif