gopher321: Never heard of LoL. Just another WoW ripoff?

DOTA ripoff.

was skeptical about swtor going in to beta weekend, however was very sad as the weekend came to a close.

more swtor please!

JanusofZeal: I did play the SWTOR beta a bit, and it seemed pretty decent. Kinda doubt WoW is dying anytime soon though.

It didn't seem to do anything significantly different than WoW. It had the voices, and a bit more story driven stuff with individual instances, but the actual gameplay was pretty cookie cutter. It will not be able to beat WoW at being WoW.

SWTOR also has the absolute worst login interface that I've ever seen in any game or launcher.

Why get salty that League of Legends borrowed from DOTA? It's not like DOTA is the brain child of one person, you can't blame somebody for being taking an idea and trying to cash in on it. The game itself is free to play, and if you wish you can spend money to buy skins or buy heroes and other goodies. DOTA is a dinosaur compared to LoL, and even the little bit of DOTA2 I've played feels stale.

Alistar support spec + any carry = congratulations on the win. I love Alistar.

WoW doesnt remain popular because it's the best possible game.

It remains popular because many folks have built communities and social circles around WoW.

As soon as Blizzard screws up enough that the social environment around/within the game becomes adversely impacted in a significant enough way, WoW will fall away. But probably not before.

and angry birds has had over half a BILLION sales.

kind of throws 'thirty million' players into the dust. LoL is basically a hyped up and extra shiny flash game/TD game.

JanusofZeal: ManateeGag: Weaver95: And when star wars Old Republic comes out, that might be all she wrote for World of Warcraft.


Aion killed wow. Rift killed wow. Now pandas and SWTOR will kill wow. Everything kills wow. That's why it has a pathetic 3x the subscribers of the second place mmo, according to the last graph I saw.


pretty much this. sure, rift's got a neat character mechanic, but outside of that there's nothing revolutionary to draw most people away from WoW.

WoW is kind of like halo in some ways... it doesn't do very much that's not been done before, but IT does do what it does pretty damn well.

and it's fun and very accessible. 99% of the content does NOT require an extremely high skill level.

/naming my pandaren shaman totoro. got the name placeheld and everything.

I can't wait for Frank Miller's Lords of Warcraft.

Weigard: I can't wait for Frank Miller's Lords of Warcraft.

'what are you, retarded or something? i'm the goddamned lich king.'

I'll never understand video game loyalty...It's not as if you're being forced to choose 1 over the other.

Do all gamer nerd work for the government? The amount of acronyms in this thread is amazing.

/nttawwt ;^)

SultanofSchwing: I'll never understand video game loyalty...It's not as if you're being forced to choose 1 over the other.


As an adult I have a limited amount of time to play games. Personally, I would have to chose one over if I wanted to see any of the content. For a different subset of the audience the limiter might be money. $15 a month isn't bad, but $30 might not be worth the money.

Two completely different games with two completely different business models...

JanusofZeal: Aion killed wow. Rift killed wow. Now pandas and SWTOR will kill wow. Everything kills wow. That's why it has a pathetic 3x the subscribers of the second place mmo, according to the last graph I saw

Blizzard killed wow themselves. Well, at least Cataclysm killed it for me. That expansion was casual & small guild hostile and pretty much ended raiding for me after enjoying the shiat out of Wrath. And there was almost no 85 content to do in Cata other than raiding or endlessly running 2-hour fail pugs in overtuned heroics. I let my subscription expire in January.

/4.3 could possibly bring me back....
//Pandaland looks to be a lot more casual friendly, as I guess Blizzard learned their lesson re: catering to the hardcore forum trolls.

SultanofSchwing: I'll never understand video game loyalty...It's not as if you're being forced to choose 1 over the other.

When it comes to MMORPGs it pretty much does. I mean, I played WoW and Aion then WoW and Warhammer at the same time and that left me with only maybe a few hours a week to divide between TF2 & console games back in college. That was when all I had was time. Now, I can't commit to an MMO much less multiple games.

This may be the cocaine talking, but I'm fairly sure I've heard that Blizzard counts 10.3 active/paying subscribers while LoL is counting all accounts whether people play them actively or not.

fracto73: SultanofSchwing: I'll never understand video game loyalty...It's not as if you're being forced to choose 1 over the other.


As an adult I have a limited amount of time to play games. Personally, I would have to chose one over if I wanted to see any of the content. For a different subset of the audience the limiter might be money. $15 a month isn't bad, but $30 might not be worth the money.

If you felt compelled to actually put in a substantial amount of time into one then yes, I know from a personal standpoint I raid 3 nights a week with my WoW guild...in the rest of my free time it's split between Skyrim, some DCUO now that it's F2P, and eventually SWToR and possibly GW2, both casually though. Sounds like a lot, but it really isn't and substantially cheaper than most other forms of entertainment these days. I guess when I get kids that "free time" might change a bit....

So, uhm, free to play League of Legends has more players than monthly subscription based World of warcraft. Color me astounded.

How many are Low Wang?



You want to wash Wang, or you want to watch Wang wash Wang?

//Oops, dropped soap. You bend down, get it.

HellRaisingHoosier: Do all gamer nerd work for the government? The amount of acronyms in this thread is amazing.

/nttawwt ;^)

Yeah I'm going to play LoL later, pick TF and hold bot in a dom match.

SultanofSchwing: I'll never understand video game loyalty...It's not as if you're being forced to choose 1 over the other.

Then you don't play them. They are pretty much a second job from a time consumption standpoint. You aren't going to have time to take more than 1 seriously. And if you don't develop a strong affinity for it then you'll feel like a dumbass spending that much time on it

How do they track active accounts for a game you don't pay for? Do you have to log in every week to be considered active? Every month? Every year?

Tax Boy: JanusofZeal: Aion killed wow. Rift killed wow. Now pandas and SWTOR will kill wow. Everything kills wow. That's why it has a pathetic 3x the subscribers of the second place mmo, according to the last graph I saw

Blizzard killed wow themselves. Well, at least Cataclysm killed it for me. That expansion was casual & small guild hostile and pretty much ended raiding for me after enjoying the shiat out of Wrath. And there was almost no 85 content to do in Cata other than raiding or endlessly running 2-hour fail pugs in overtuned heroics. I let my subscription expire in January.

/4.3 could possibly bring me back....
//Pandaland looks to be a lot more casual friendly, as I guess Blizzard learned their lesson re: catering to the hardcore forum trolls.


Not sure how you come to that conclusion. Cataclysm has done everything in it's power to cater towards the smaller guilds, as someone who's run a 25's guild for 5 years I find it kind of sad when people can't operate with a 10s guild for raiding. Speaking of which, the raid content was easily accessible to people and with subsequent "tuning"/"nerfs", w/e side of the fence you're on, has made it incredibly simple for the casual raider to get involved. The difference is that most "casual players" think that they should be doing the same things at the same level of proficiency as the "big boys" who spend hours upon hours competing for World or Regional firsts etc.

There's a reason there is two distinct levels of difficulty. The "casual" players just always seem to look at it as if Blizzard is merely patronizing them. There never used to be a "casual" or a "hardcore" raiding platform. 6 years ago if you were a "casual guild" you'd be lucky to complete anything beyond the first tier as the subsequent content was unforgiving in it's difficulty by comparison. If anything WoW has become -more- casual friendly than it ever was when it was released and has done even more in the last 2 expansions to make it even more accessible.

JanusofZeal: ManateeGag: Weaver95: And when star wars Old Republic comes out, that might be all she wrote for World of Warcraft.

That's what I read about DCUO, and now it's free to play. I think Star Wars is too niche and they are going to end up with an obscene number of people playing of Jedi and not as many people in other support roles.

Aion killed wow. Rift killed wow. Now pandas and SWTOR will kill wow. Everything kills wow. That's why it has a pathetic 3x the subscribers of the second place mmo, according to the last graph I saw.

I did play the SWTOR beta a bit, and it seemed pretty decent. Kinda doubt WoW is dying anytime soon though.

I think it's interesting you figure everyone's gonna play Jedi. I expected sith to dominate over whatever the good guys are called.

/tried bounty hunter.

I've played the beta too. I don't think force-users will dominate at all. they made the other classes pretty compelling too. It's hard to say how the numbers will split between Republic and Empire. Empire seems to be very popular with the dedicated fans, but people who are rolling in off the street may lean more towards the good guys.

I think that TOR may do pretty well for itself, but it still won't touch WoW numbers. I'm beginning to think that WoW's customers are not in the same market as all the other MMO's. They play WoW forever and quit when they get bored then the vast majority go outside and get reaquainted with their families. Not many seem interested in trying other titles. The main problem for TOR I think is that players may have too high of expectations for it. It does not revolutionize the genre. It's not even evolutionary. It's not breaking the mold and it's not taking big risks by trying something way different. It's fun. It has some nifty features, but it lacks uniqueness.

Expansions are going to be tricky. From what I hear, your character reaches the apex of it's career at the end of the main storyline (for it's class). What do they do for an encore? Make you the Emperor or Chancellor? Some classes have wildly different endings based on your choices, it's not like it's easy to just pick up where the storyline left off. Retcon everyone's choices to a certain set and build from there?

New species and planets make sense and real space combat. I don't know if they can dig new classes out of the IP or not. I could see room for an aura-twisting support class, perhaps. Republic Officer and Dathomiri Witch?

I plan to play, but mostly for the storylines (some of which are truely awesome). I'll quit when I've maxed a few classes.

SultanofSchwing: fracto73: SultanofSchwing: I'll never understand video game loyalty...It's not as if you're being forced to choose 1 over the other.


As an adult I have a limited amount of time to play games. Personally, I would have to chose one over if I wanted to see any of the content. For a different subset of the audience the limiter might be money. $15 a month isn't bad, but $30 might not be worth the money.

If you felt compelled to actually put in a substantial amount of time into one then yes, I know from a personal standpoint I raid 3 nights a week with my WoW guild...in the rest of my free time it's split between Skyrim, some DCUO now that it's F2P, and eventually SWToR and possibly GW2, both casually though. Sounds like a lot, but it really isn't and substantially cheaper than most other forms of entertainment these days. I guess when I get kids that "free time" might change a bit....


For me it's home ownership that killed my free time. Painting the house, mowing the lawn, cutting firewood, etc. It never ends. At the end of my wow playing days I ran a dungeon 1 night a week with a constant group of people. Now it's pretty much Skyrim.

GameSprocket: How many are Low Wang?

Now that they finally finished DNF, I'm still waiting for Shadow Warrior 2.

/You-a no mess wif LO WANG!

I only play T'Rain these days. Much better physics than WoW. The mountains are amazing.

you mean a free game that has very little in place to stop multi accounts has a lot of subscribers?

jeez tell me more!

tbhouston: you mean a free game that has very little in place to stop multi accounts has a lot of subscribers?

jeez tell me more!

Wait till you see the number of people who play solitaire.

SultanofSchwing: Cataclysm has done everything in it's power to cater towards the smaller guilds

Putting a lot of important raiding tools as guild leveling perks or achievements (such as the fish feast) makes things difficult for smaller guilds. How many thousands of fish did it take to get the recipe?

The merged 10/25 lockouts also made it difficult for pug raiding or for 10-man guilds to join up to do a 25 (or for a 25 guild to run 10s on an off-night or for practice like my guild did in wrath).

That said, the LFR tool coming in 4.3 should help alleviate the 10/25 lockout issue.

LarryDan43: I only play T'Rain these days. Much better physics than WoW. The mountains are amazing.

I have an interesting file to email you....

SultanofSchwing: The difference is that most "casual players" think that they should be doing the same things at the same level of proficiency as the "big boys" who spend hours upon hours competing for World or Regional firsts etc.


This is the only part I disagree with. From what I've experienced, most players (casual or otherwise) think you should be up there with the big boys and that they are just fine. For the most part I blame the queue. It took the social aspect out of building a group. Even just LFGing a random group in trade you had some interaction with the people you were running with before, now you can queue up and zerg through a dungeon without ever talking to the other players, some of which you will never see again because they aren't on your server. People think that the dungeons are too hard because they don't use tactics. They don't use tactics because they just want to zerg through a dungeon at max speed. They have no idea what the other players (not class or spec) are good at, so they wipe and then flame the healer or tank. Rage quit, repeat. QQ about the dungeon difficulty.

Let my WoW account lapse today. Skyrim will hold me over until at least Diablo 3, possibly further.

Knara: WoW doesnt remain popular because it's the best possible game.

It remains popular because many folks have built communities and social circles around WoW.

As soon as Blizzard screws up enough that the social environment around/within the game becomes adversely impacted in a significant enough way, WoW will fall away. But probably not before.


I think trade channel adversely affected the social environment for anyone who isn't a pimply faced teenager who finds poop jokes and racist insults funny.

Weaver95: Pixiest: Canceled my WoW this week. Played Rift, now playing Skyrim, will soon play SWTOR...

If I'd kept playing WoW, I would have made a Panda named SexualHarassment. (or whatever I had to do to get around the naming filter...)

/css

that is awesome.

I had an orcish engineer named Orkimedies. My hunter was named S. Thompson.

I had a Deathknight named Arthastewart.

/started the trend when I reserved it in the beta

Tax Boy: SultanofSchwing: Cataclysm has done everything in it's power to cater towards the smaller guilds

Putting a lot of important raiding tools as guild leveling perks or achievements (such as the fish feast) makes things difficult for smaller guilds. How many thousands of fish did it take to get the recipe?

The merged 10/25 lockouts also made it difficult for pug raiding or for 10-man guilds to join up to do a 25 (or for a 25 guild to run 10s on an off-night or for practice like my guild did in wrath).

That said, the LFR tool coming in 4.3 should help alleviate the 10/25 lockout issue.

Feasts provide nothing that personal food doesn't already give. It's just that you all get to share in it, it's not a requirement to have it for successful raids. Same goes for Cauldrons. It was also 5000 of any fish, having players leveling their professions was usually enough to accomplish this. The subsequent changes to the system made it easier for a smaller guild to get to level 25 with the removal of the caps. Even then though it only took a small handful of dungeon runs to cap out for the day. But this falls into the same category of "we want what those other guys want." The reason these guilds were leveling fast? They were investing the time in it.

The lockouts just gave you the flexibility to switch for those low attendance nights without having to reclear...and since loot tables were shared between 10 or 25 you didn't really lose out on the stuff your people needed, whereas in Wrath it was lower quality aside from maybe a few choice items that were quite good. But the option for doing 10 or 25 isn't a "small guilds" issue, it's an issue for a guild that's trying to do something they just shouldn't be. The only pain in the ass is the heroic lockout. But that likely doesn't concern a "casual guild" very much. In fact I would say that it affects a poor guild more than it affects a casual guild. Because the casual guild isn't going to be trying to press out Heroic Ragnaros in a week with a fluctuating roster, they probably want Heroic Shannox and call it a night. It's the poor guilds who are facing the problem with a heroic lockout, after they kill 2/7 in 25's and then half their raiders just take a powder for the rest of their raid week.

annitabonghit: Knara: WoW doesnt remain popular because it's the best possible game.

It remains popular because many folks have built communities and social circles around WoW.

As soon as Blizzard screws up enough that the social environment around/within the game becomes adversely impacted in a significant enough way, WoW will fall away. But probably not before.


I think trade channel adversely affected the social environment for anyone who isn't a pimply faced teenager who finds poop jokes and racist insults funny.

Ah, but you see, that's the majority of the customer base. However the "being a pimply faced teenager who finds poop jokes and racist insults funny" phase only lasts 10 years*.

*Your results may vary

It's sad that Diablo II has a more mature group of players than WOW does.