WoW: Cataclysm Hooks 4.7 Million in a Month

[Whimsi]

It isn't dead, it's just a zombie stifled in the ways of innovation. It follows the consoles now. Thank goodness for indy developers keeping things fresh.

Wow, this is actually a rather brilliant metaphor for WoW. Bravo, sir.

 

[Jumwa]

But with them holding 90% of the MMO-buying market, it's hard to leave good friends and a robust (if not somewhat insipid) community for something that will flop because there's no room to breathe in the market.

I think the number of us sticking around in WoW simply because of those reasons is probably startlingly large. Our friends are being held hostage!

 

[Monshroud]

See, now when people ask the question of "Is PC gaming dead or dying?" We can point to this and say, "No, they are just playing WoW. . . and Starcraft. . . and soon Diablo 3, oh and Portal 2... And Team Fortress 2. . "

 

[SinisterGehe]

This means that roughly 1% of America now owns the game. One of every hundred people you meet is an addict. Sheesh.
Edit: This is an approximate figure taking into account that WoW:Cata is not a States-only release. Given at least 3 million US-based accounts, that is 1% of the 300 million current inhabitants of the United States.

Not everyone who plays WOW is an addict.

I play wow, I spend most of my time front of computer doing.... Guess what!

Spoiler

Composing music for my orchestra (wind band) and studying for school. I only spend tho rare raid night (3times a week for 3 hours + mandatory 1 hr grind before the raid in wow) I wish I would have more time to play wow, but guess what... I don't... It is hard to be musician, student, composer and alive at the same time + trying to fit the enjoyment wow in to the mix also...

I just love you shallow mind you have dear omicron1... Hey let me jump to this game also... Everyone who plays Black Ops and is a male, is a 16 years old sexist brat, with low self-esteem, who also does verbal sexual insults to every girl he meets online in order to boost hes own self-confidence... Did I get it right?

Sorry... Sometimes people just... Well people who clearly know we all are part of the gaming community, still wont bother accepting that we all are just as sad pafetic, equal and important as anyone else who dares to admit he plays videos games...

Yes, I know... I got pessimistic view of humanity, no need to mention that
Sorry, If I insulted someone here... I always do.

Ok, that was just uncalled for. I was using "addict" as a blanket term for "people continuously and actively playing the game," not trying to imply stereotypes about their natures or psychological health; upon rereading my own comment, I can see how easy it is to misinterpret it (or rather, how very much lacking my actual meaning was in my original words); nonetheless, directly insulting my person in that manner is an action I can only count as intentionally, blatantly rude.

Ah, you play Black Ops... How could I have known that??? I take addict as an insult towards me and my WoW playing community (And since insult are defined by everyones own moral/ethical base which is subjective to cultural relativism. Example If I would call you Hesalainen (a person from Helsinki) You wouldn't take it as an insult (most likely)), say it to Finn and he takes an insult) In which you think that calling someone addict is OK (Even it is not specified to a certain being), since there are people with hard addictions which is a problem that are ruining lives, I do not see it to be morally* (*Subject to my moral views) fit to call someone by this term (in my view) it is instantly referring that he/she got a problem (in this case wow), and since it is not a problem (to majority at least) it can be seen as an insult.
I took it as an insult, and is responded with according** (**To my view according/right) behavior to you.

Welcome to world of cultural relativism...

 

[John Funk]

I'm a WoW player. Or I was. Now I pretty much just play to raid one night a week. I guess I've payed $15 for less entertainment, but it really seems like WoW is just coasting on easy street these days without putting much work into the game. Honestly, what's changed in three expansions? Not a whole lot. Pepper in a couple time sinks here (archaeology? Neat idea...rather narrow implementation), a couple money sinks there (and with the economy being what it is on most servers now, you have to charge a good 50k gold just to limit the amount of people who can buy something...), and voila. License to print money.

WoW needs to die. I'm not saying that because I hate WoW, but rather, because I want Blizzard to actually do what they've shown they're very good at in the past: innovate. But with them holding 90% of the MMO-buying market, it's hard to leave good friends and a robust (if not somewhat insipid) community for something that will flop because there's no room to breathe in the market.

Blizzard has never innovated. They refine.

 

[Danpascooch]

I did not like this expansion, it didn't bring nearly as much to the table as BC or WotLK.

The dungeons are hard, and that's cool, but it really feels like half an expansion.

 

[Danpascooch]

just cause they bought it doesn't mean they are happy with it.

there are deep unsettled rumblings in the WoW community about Cata.

quite simply it is not (when viewed objectively) the second coming it was promised to be.

for example i defy anyone (who has played the game before) to level a new Dwarf through Dun Morogh>Loch Modan>Wetlands>Arathi>Hinterlands (a standard Alliance leveling path) and tell me it lives up to the "uber new leveling experience" promise of Cata.

the "lore" lies tattered in ruins as the game has become a theme park based on its former self. "so where did these stone drakes come from ?" "why is this mob here ? why is that Outland mob here ?!" " who cares just keeeel it for phat purples!" comes back the answer.

im TBC and Wrath they spend virtually the whole expansion from beginning to end explaining and tying in the new class additions. in Cata (apart from some Tauren Paladin and NElf mage foreshadowing in late Wrath) there is nothing in game to explain the many new class additions. NOTHING. at the same time they have very obviously tried to throw in some cinematic presentation and more voice work to fend off unfavourable comparison with up and coming games.

there have been pages and pages worth of "something isn't quite right" "i think i'll maybe call it a day" threads on some of the most fervent WoW related forums on the net and surprisingly they haven't all been shouted down like they usually are but instead people have concurred.

imho i think the lack of any real break of a leveling period between 80 and 85 has resulted in a situation where the "sameness" of the game has been reinforced quite unfavorably. quite simply it's very obvious for some reason you are doing exactly the same things you were doing at 80 only three days or so later at 85 despite their best efforts and loads of hype about Cata being a very large change of an expansion.

and thats without even going into the problem of heavily perceived faction bias in relation to the quality of leveling content added... (correctly perceived i might add. if you consider yourself unbiased level one either side and decide for yourself. i have and as it's not my MMO of choice i did so with an open mind)

no, as i said at the start just cause they bought it doesn't mean they are happy with it.

The Burning Crusade gets an instant pass because it was the first expansion, and brought a shitload of new things to the table, in fact, everything it brought to the table was new, because it was the first expansion.

WotLK gave us another giant new continent, and a good storyline that people who played Warcraft 3 actually give a fuck about. It also gave us the dungeon finder, which is like a goddamned expansion all in itself.

Cataclysm brought us about half of the new content we expected from the other expansions, and very little new mechanics such as flying mounts or raid dailies. Guild Achievements? Sure, they're a cool little perk, but they are not a selling point. Yes it's interesting that Azeroth changed, but new members won't care because they didn't see the old (better) Azeroth, and current players won't care because they are embroiled in endgame content, so this huge amount of new content was squarely aimed at.....alts. Was it really worth it Blizzard?

I know this broke crazy records, I bought a copy too, but Blizzard is going to find this a less successful expansion when the dropoff in membership starts much earlier than it did after the release of WotLK.

WotLK kept me occupied for about 4 months before I needed a long break, my long break from Cataclysm began two weeks ago.

 

[DannibalG36]

Naturally, I continue to play EVE Online in protest.

 

[Sticky Slick]

You do realise youve payed 60+60+60+60=240$ for a game thats practically the same thing?

I remember the days when patches and map packs were free and you could actually count on getting them.

 

[MasterSplinter]

And it hasn't even been released in mainland China yet (which might take a while, considering how Lich King only just got approved this year [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102685-China-Finally-Gives-the-Lich-King-the-Thumbs-Up]).

Funk you've got to let go of the pc for a while. 2010 came and passed We've entered a whole new decade now.

 

[Vaccine]

there are deep unsettled rumblings in the WoW community about Cata.

There's this shit in every expansion and patch, even.
If this was really true WoW would have shut down after TBC, don't kid yourself into some misguided concept because you saw a few guys post on forums and trade chat.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

(if you ever do - I'm looking at you, Heroic-mode Grim Batol)

I feel your pain.. I ran that earlier today. It put me off PuG's forever.

OT: I agree to this being the finest expansion to WoW. The long quest chains and all the cutscenes make the game feel so much more immersive almost like you're playing a single player RPG.

My guild is also preparing for raids, we have one tonight in fact. Good luck in your guild runs John

 

[mptothedc]

I'm a WoW player. Or I was. Now I pretty much just play to raid one night a week. I guess I've payed $15 for less entertainment, but it really seems like WoW is just coasting on easy street these days without putting much work into the game. Honestly, what's changed in three expansions? Not a whole lot. Pepper in a couple time sinks here (archaeology? Neat idea...rather narrow implementation), a couple money sinks there (and with the economy being what it is on most servers now, you have to charge a good 50k gold just to limit the amount of people who can buy something...), and voila. License to print money.

WoW needs to die. I'm not saying that because I hate WoW, but rather, because I want Blizzard to actually do what they've shown they're very good at in the past: innovate. But with them holding 90% of the MMO-buying market, it's hard to leave good friends and a robust (if not somewhat insipid) community for something that will flop because there's no room to breathe in the market.

I agree with pretty much everything but I also wonder if it's just that I've grown bored of the game as well. It's all new for people who just started playing, say, since the last expansion. I decided to stop playing it. Oh and as for your WoW needs to die thing... yeah well when it does... I'm sure Blizzard will still be doing pretty well in the MMO market.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94360-Blizzards-New-MMOG-Will-Be-Significantly-Different-From-WoW

I also think the content isn't hard, but instead is still new, so not everyone has learned how to deal with all the fights yet.

 

[Exort]

I thought WoW had a subscription base of 10 million. Meaning at least half didn't get the new expansion. I may have heard wrong, but definitely not all the players got it, and I'm curious as to why...

I touched on that: It's a 12m subscription base, with about half of that being in Asia. It hasn't even launched in China yet. So if we be conservative and say that China is 4m of the worldwide subscribers, that's only 8m - and some, for whatever reason, just might not have upgraded yet.

Half right. The sad truth is only EU/US players pay for expansion, China/Taiwan/Korea gets it for free. I not sure about the rest of the places (but China/US/Eu are the big ones).

In Asia their model is that you only pay for the monthly fee and nothing else. However your charater get deleted if you have more than 1 year of inactivity (loging on the website counts as activity). I know because my charaters on Asia server are all deleted...

Also 5.5 million is more than the number of Eu and US that they released in press last time which was about 2 million each.
So Cata attacted 1.5 million new players in Eu and US in one month? That is actually pretty good, considering a 6 years old game (or even for new games).

Note: in Asia they do sell DVD of Catalysm but you can download from the website for free and the CD cost like 2 dollar US.

 

[kingcom]

I've spent dozens and dozens of hours in Cataclysm so far, and I think it's inarguably the finest expansion the game has seen yet. High-level content is hard again and rewarding to finish (if you ever do - I'm looking at you, Heroic-mode Grim Batol)

Oh boy I hate that place, its a pain.

But on the point of hard content, yeah its nice to see it actually being difficult. That said, arguably the heroics are still pretty easy.

Well the heroics get easier after the first motnh of the games release, everyone has the gear and if you pug you have a fairly good chance of getting atleast some of the group with level appropirate gear. Doing Blackrock Caverns for the first time on heroic and doing the smith boss was incerdiblly difficult when nobody is pulling over 10K dps and the tank is only on 120K hp, not to mention the druid healer really working mana regeneration to keep us going.

Now that people are geared up even with valor items and raid gear, they are all easymode again.

 

[Pilkingtube]

I don't know, i've played on and off since 2005, I got the expansion on day of release, booked a 3 month subscription and burned to 84, then I just stopped. You know when you log on, but it feels like you've just signed into work, it isn't fun but it just needs to be done? I finally hit that point after 6 years, it's a bit of a shame really because the quests were a lot more interesting and the changes to healing were nice after killing the Lich King.

Oh well, now i've got a scary amount of time on my hands, I need to start playing other games that i've not touched in years!