WoW pre-release

[Poomanchu745]

So i got into WoW in the fall of 2005 roughly a year after its release and quit around 2 years ago. I was just thinking though that recently every big MMO that comes out is supposed to be the next great thing that consumes all of our lives and conquers WoW. So I guess my question is what kind of hype and promises surrounded WoW pre-release and the few weeks to months after it went live? I really didn't know about WoW until I started playing so I was completely ignorant to what it was doing before then. Was it heralded as the next big thing or did it just continuously grow until it was the king of the MMO world?

 

[mew4ever23]

I would have to say that it immediately (or almost immediately) sucked in WarCraft Players, they posted about it being good on various forums, members of these forums looked into it, and it spread like a virus from there.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

I would have to say that it immediately (or almost immediately) sucked in WarCraft Players, they posted about it being good on various forums, members of these forums looked into it, and it spread like a virus from there.

And it should be noted that there were a lot of Warcraft players before WoW. Hell, it's still one of the most heavily played games on the PC. Add to that the Starcraft and Diablo crowds and you have a loyal zombie army that Arthas would be proud of.

Point is that it had two things that can be linked to it's success:

1) A large, already established community before the game went to coding.

2) Following a signature style of Blizzard to be completely focused on providing a top-quality product. In the case of the MMO, this requires the "first-fifteen" to be an enjoyable experience that pulls you in and never lets you completely go. And Blizzard is very loyal to this policy and has a history of ending development at the eleventh hour because it didn't match up to quality specifications (I still am waiting for Starcraft Ghost!).

To summarize: Addiction(multiple people)=A stream of revenue that makes SoE cry.

 

[mew4ever23]

I would have to say that it immediately (or almost immediately) sucked in WarCraft Players, they posted about it being good on various forums, members of these forums looked into it, and it spread like a virus from there.

And it should be noted that there were a lot of Warcraft players before WoW. Hell, it's still one of the most heavily played games on the PC. Add to that the Starcraft and Diablo crowds and you have a loyal zombie army that Arthas would be proud of.

Point is that it had two things that can be linked to it's success:

1) A large, already established community before the game went to coding.

2) Following a signature style of Blizzard to be completely focused on providing a top-quality product. In the case of the MMO, this requires the "first-fifteen" to be an enjoyable experience that pulls you in and never lets you completely go. And Blizzard is very loyal to this policy and has a history of ending development at the eleventh hour because it didn't match up to quality specifications (I still am waiting for Starcraft Ghost!).

To summarize: Addiction(multiple people)=A stream of revenue that makes SoE cry.

Yup.
/Thread.