Sorry, but a return to the days when only the top 1% get to experience all the content would do more to drive away the customer base than anything else. If you weren't in a raiding guild in Vanilla, what options did you have? PvP, which a lot of people don't like, or running BRS over and over again. You're pushing for content to become completely exclusive, which goes against the majority desire. You can throw as many toys out of your pram as you like about how easy the game's become, but if WoW had stayed that way it wouldn't have lasted as long as it has.
** Official World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Thread**
- Thread starter Mr-White
- Start date
This. Also talk of its demise is premature. they lost 100k last quarter, which is what 1%? At the same time as the supposed wow killer SWTOR came out. GW2? im not sure that is a factor - is the main world persistent?
AFAIK GW2 is a fully persistent world.
I'm not going to say I think GW2 will be a WoW killer, because I hate that term - I do however, think it will be the most successful MMO game since WoW's release.
It's off-topic and I'm sure you'll hear a lot of annoying comparisons over the next few months... but yes, GW2's development is pretty much covering every single base WoW has in a methodical way.
. And yeah, if it follows the last one, it won't be subbed.
So has pretty much every other MMO that has tried to topple WoW and not one of them has even got close.
BUt I am really looking forward to GW2 myself though, if it can live up to the obscene amount of hype it has it will be good.
I think you'd be very foolish to compare GW2 to "every other hyped MMO". For a start, GW2 has not even been hyped... they have been quietly working on this game for about 4-5 years (I've been following it with great interest ever since I began to be disaffected with WoW, my normal go-to MMO). They are a design team with hardly any production or publishing deadlines - ergo: no rushed releases, no botched product, no half-satisfied result. They are in a pretty unique position compared to other MMO design companies in that they can take as long as they please to work on a game that they are genuinely happy with (or so we're told, and so the lengthy production schedule seems to confirm...). So do not lazily lump GW2 in the same bracket as games such as Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Aion, etc. These are games I have all tried eagerly and played disappointingly. These are all games, in fact, that have depended in part upon their marketing to unsatisfied and/or grumbling ex-WoW players for a large part of their pre-order and sales figures. These are all games that are justly called, I think, "hyped WoW killers". And they all failed for entirely predictable, banal reasons. GW2 is completely different - do not be drawn into that mistaken way of thinking because of the recent hype around the Private Press Beta (which is the first real murmurings of GW2's potential on an otherwise-unannounced stage).
All I'm trying to say, here, in a roundabout way with complaints about WoW's design ethos and the other serious competitors now coming along... is that it feels as though something 'essential' is missing from WoW now. The same with this expansion packs, which rouses absolutely no interest or excitement in me at all. I was jaded with WoW by the time TBC was in its end-stages, yet I still felt a prickle of excitement at the launch trailers for both WotLK and Cataclysm, admittedly. I was still somehow convinced that, even if only in germane traces, the game still could be restored to its former glories (and being cynical you have to admit that the Blizzard devs played upon these hopes of the older playerbase, hugely hyping features such as Rated BG's as the return to an Edenic age of WSG/AB farming...). But with 'Mists of Pandaria' I feel absolutely nothing. It seems on the surface to be a largely cosmetic milking of the WoW cash-cow franchise that appeals - aesthetically at least - to their remaining Asian market. It doesn't even try to make a promise of salvaging some of WoW's superior strengths (and I do believe that, in its hey-day, it was one of the best PC games ever, thanks to those very strengths). It seems to be altogether more mute. I feel like Blizz themselves have half given-up on the whole thing. I'm something more than just jaded now.
Guaranteed D3 beta access
Guaranteed MoP beta access
Shiny mount
Subs should have risen not declined Q4, be interesting to see what the 2012 Q2 results will be as people would have the promised beta access then, I'm guessing a marked decreased.
Regardless, any more word on the expansion details given its been 4 odd months since MoP was stated as the next expac?
I enjoy watching the release cycle of a new MMO.
1) "OMG it looks amazing"
2) "OMG it'll be a WoW killer"
3) Game comes out
4) Nothing changes
5) People shouting "OMG WoW killer" go amazingly silent
6) Life goes on
It was the same with AoC, same with Guild Wars, same with the new SW MMO. Nothing can even scratch the surface of what WoW has - if WoW goes to the crapper it'll be totally Blizzard's fault, nobody else's.
Personally I hate the direction WoW has gone in, but I understand it.
+1
the annual pass was way too expensive to influence subs, plus add in players leaving for SWTOR and analysts were expecting it to drop a lot more. Im going to say break or even increase with returning players for Q2 whilst SWTOR drops a bit as well, but only because theyre rushing the asia launch so it can hide the decline.
MOP is having some kind of presentation thing in march i believe, should be some info then.
Oh yeah, 19th isnt it? Hopefully some juicy details get released.
Um, what are you talking about? Nobody ever said Guild Wars was going to be a "WoW killer" back in the day. It was a completely different sort of game and was most certainly aimed at an entirely different audience. They weren't even comparable! Both games had huge and enthusiastic communities in complete co-existence (although of course WoW had bigger numbers because it was actually an MMORPG). Sure there have been plenty of games that have hyped themselves and marketed themselves to disillusioned WoW players - AoC, WAR, Aion, Star Wars, to name a few - but Guild Wars 1 was NOT one of them.
The MoP press release has given us a ton of new info on the expansion. heres a brief summary:
•The final patch of Mists of Pandaria will be the Siege of Orgrimmar! Both factions lay siege to the city to bring Garrosh down and end his reign of Warchief.
•The new LFR loot system will allow everyone to roll individually. The highest few rolls will win an item from the boss. Upon winning a roll, if the boss has an item that you can use, you will win it. If not, you will get some amount of gold. It will only be in LFR to begin with, but can be added to other parts of the game later.
•An 11th character slot has been added.
•AoE Looting has been added.
•There will not be an item squish in Mist of Pandaria.
•No new race models are ready to be added yet.
•There will be nine level 90 heroics for players as well as three raids with 14 raid bosses and three difficulties. There will be an additional two world bosses.
•Scenarios will take place at level 90, in an instance, and reward reputation and Valor points. They don't need a healer, tank, and DPS, just DPS is fine. Each will take 10 to 30 minutes to complete and five or more will be available for launch.
•In Challenge Modes, the vast majority of players will most likely earn a bronze medal even if they are a relatively unskilled player. After a player earns all the medals at the Bronze level, they will be rewarded with an achievement and title. Completing all of the Silver medals will earn a set of spectacular gear for transmogrification, and completing all of the gold will earn a unique epic flying mount. Challenge modes will be available for the six new dungeons at launch.
•Cloud Serpents are the Pandaren's mount of choice. You can raise your own by doing 20 days of daily quests.
•The Tillers faction will let you run your own farm! The farmer's market will provide daily quest to improve your farm every day, you will be able to clear plots of land and plant things like cooking ingredients, herbalism nodes, gifts for NPCs to build your reputation... etc.
•Warlocks got the most class changes in MoP, along with new pets.
•There will be more mounts and less color swaps for different rewards.
•They are adding armor to creatures to give them varied appearances, something other than just simple color changes.
•There are now seven zones, up from five. This was done to add more content to the game and give players a less linear progression path so that leveling for a second or third time isn’t the exact same.
•There will be one new arena and two new battlegrounds at launch.
•PvP pet battles are going to be fun and causal, only tracking the number of wins and not the number of losses. When fighting another player, you cannot see the other players name or communicate with them.
•Currently, every race except Goblin and Worgen can learn the ways of the monk.
•The Pre Mists of Pandaria Patch will be roughly two weeks before launch and bring simple rewards. It might involve a scenario with Theramore and the Alliance vs Horde theme. Chen Stormstout might also come to the local cities and get players excited about what is coming.
•The final patch of Mists of Pandaria will be the Siege of Orgrimmar! Both factions lay siege to the city to bring Garrosh down and end his reign of Warchief.
•The new LFR loot system will allow everyone to roll individually. The highest few rolls will win an item from the boss. Upon winning a roll, if the boss has an item that you can use, you will win it. If not, you will get some amount of gold. It will only be in LFR to begin with, but can be added to other parts of the game later.
•An 11th character slot has been added.
•AoE Looting has been added.
•There will not be an item squish in Mist of Pandaria.
•No new race models are ready to be added yet.
•There will be nine level 90 heroics for players as well as three raids with 14 raid bosses and three difficulties. There will be an additional two world bosses.
•Scenarios will take place at level 90, in an instance, and reward reputation and Valor points. They don't need a healer, tank, and DPS, just DPS is fine. Each will take 10 to 30 minutes to complete and five or more will be available for launch.
•In Challenge Modes, the vast majority of players will most likely earn a bronze medal even if they are a relatively unskilled player. After a player earns all the medals at the Bronze level, they will be rewarded with an achievement and title. Completing all of the Silver medals will earn a set of spectacular gear for transmogrification, and completing all of the gold will earn a unique epic flying mount. Challenge modes will be available for the six new dungeons at launch.
•Cloud Serpents are the Pandaren's mount of choice. You can raise your own by doing 20 days of daily quests.
•The Tillers faction will let you run your own farm! The farmer's market will provide daily quest to improve your farm every day, you will be able to clear plots of land and plant things like cooking ingredients, herbalism nodes, gifts for NPCs to build your reputation... etc.
•Warlocks got the most class changes in MoP, along with new pets.
•There will be more mounts and less color swaps for different rewards.
•They are adding armor to creatures to give them varied appearances, something other than just simple color changes.
•There are now seven zones, up from five. This was done to add more content to the game and give players a less linear progression path so that leveling for a second or third time isn’t the exact same.
•There will be one new arena and two new battlegrounds at launch.
•PvP pet battles are going to be fun and causal, only tracking the number of wins and not the number of losses. When fighting another player, you cannot see the other players name or communicate with them.
•Currently, every race except Goblin and Worgen can learn the ways of the monk.
•The Pre Mists of Pandaria Patch will be roughly two weeks before launch and bring simple rewards. It might involve a scenario with Theramore and the Alliance vs Horde theme. Chen Stormstout might also come to the local cities and get players excited about what is coming.
Also:
General
•Humans and Orcs are next on the list after dwarves for character model updates.
•The Pandaren may also have a dragon turtle mount that will look different from the one obtained through fishing.
•The DotA style battleground that got cut is still something that they would like to do, but it needs some new tech that isn't developed yet.
•Tri-spec is off the table for the foreseeable future.
•There are now eight core buffs, so the UI will show you the number out of eight that you have (6/8).
•A new character customization screen is in the works, with a visual list of what the different customizations look like. The screen also has a small video of what the class looks like in action, similar to Diablo III.
•Pet battles with World of Warcraft Remote are something that is on the list of things that would be nice to do someday.
•The giant statue in Jade Forest will be destroyed when the Alliance and Horde battle, bringing consequences for the entire continent.
•The Molten Front daily quests were tuned to take too long.
•If titles become account wide, you will be able to use it at the level you could have earned it at.
•Mounts are on the list of things to be made account wide, either at launch or a patch soon after.
•It still isn't clear if the final version of MoP will raise the guild level cap or not. However, the guild experience caps will be removed.
•Green level difficulty and harder quests may give a flat amount of guild experience in order to allow lower level players to contribute to guild leveling.
•World PvP may be encouraged by rewards such as raising the Conquest Points cap when .
•Before Wrath of the Lich King came out, less than one percent of the playerbase actually experienced Sunwell.
Dungeons and Raids
•There is a possibility of another troll dungeon, as some trolls live on an island off the coast of Pandaria.
•Blizzard would have liked to do a 15 man raid size if they were starting from scratch today. However, for now they are sticking with both 10 and 25 man.
•Raid tiers should last roughly four months, with content updates also coming between the larger raid updates. This could mean we would see a patch every two months or so.
•Anger is the Sha world boss in Kun-Lai Summit, appearing every few hours or so.
•Fear is a Sha boss in the Dread Wastes, possessing the Mantid Queen and causing havoc.
•Each world boss will have a unique mount in their loot table.
•Blizzard will be revisiting the shared 10 and 25 man lockout to make sure it is still the right thing.
•If you win a roll in LFR and the boss has no item for you, you will get gold instead.
•The new LFR loot system will grant a bonus roll when you have an item purchased from one of the Pandaren factions. These tokens can also be used to purchase the normal epic gear that is usually associated with factions. This extra roll works in all three difficulty levels.
Classes
•Monks will have autoattack, as gameplay just didn't feel right without it.
•Visible librams and quivers may not make it in time for Mists of Pandaria.
•Shaman Level 90 talents were in game! One improves Unleash Elements to provide a better bonus for each imbue type. The second removes the cooldown on your Fire and Earth Elemental Totems and allows you to control them. The third is a blast of elemental energy in a cone on a 15 sec cooldown.
Glyphs
• Warlock
•Minor glyph that gives Eye of Kilrogg the ability to place your Demonic Circle at the cost of stealth.
•Minor glyph that gives felguard with a random two-handed sword, two-handed axe, or polearm when you summon him.
• Druid
•A new minor glyph that allow druids to have a random coloring in cat and bear form has been added.
•A new minor glyph that allow druids to stay in tree form has been added.
•A new minor glyph that changes a druid's aquatic form into a Orca has been added.
•A new minor glyph that changes a druid's travel form into a white stag has been added. Other players can ride you while in this form.
•A new minor glyph that changes a druid's moonkin form into a moonkin spirit has been added.
Professions
•Lorewalkers might be worked in to Archaeology somehow, perhaps granting skill ups in some way.
•There are now multiple different cooking specializations; steaming, frying, broiling. Each is related to one of the primary stats, like Agility. When you level one of the specializations to 600, you are able to make all of the feasts.
•Inscription may get something new, like a staff that you upgrade as you level inscription. This will combat the fatigue that comes from creating hundreds of glyphs to level.
•Archaeology may get random creature spawns from digging that will drop more fragments when killed. It also may get a rare drop that will transport you to the next dig site.
Lore Figures
•Vol'jin will make an appearance at some point during the expansion.
•Blizzard has talked about turning Jaina's hair all white because of the shock, and her becoming this very violent and dangerous mage.
•Garrosh has become corrupted and has been doing some really nasty things beneath Orgrimmar.
•There may be a Labours of Hercules style quest chain that you do for Varian to show you more of the story and let you get to know him better.
General
•Humans and Orcs are next on the list after dwarves for character model updates.
•The Pandaren may also have a dragon turtle mount that will look different from the one obtained through fishing.
•The DotA style battleground that got cut is still something that they would like to do, but it needs some new tech that isn't developed yet.
•Tri-spec is off the table for the foreseeable future.
•There are now eight core buffs, so the UI will show you the number out of eight that you have (6/8).
•A new character customization screen is in the works, with a visual list of what the different customizations look like. The screen also has a small video of what the class looks like in action, similar to Diablo III.
•Pet battles with World of Warcraft Remote are something that is on the list of things that would be nice to do someday.
•The giant statue in Jade Forest will be destroyed when the Alliance and Horde battle, bringing consequences for the entire continent.
•The Molten Front daily quests were tuned to take too long.
•If titles become account wide, you will be able to use it at the level you could have earned it at.
•Mounts are on the list of things to be made account wide, either at launch or a patch soon after.
•It still isn't clear if the final version of MoP will raise the guild level cap or not. However, the guild experience caps will be removed.
•Green level difficulty and harder quests may give a flat amount of guild experience in order to allow lower level players to contribute to guild leveling.
•World PvP may be encouraged by rewards such as raising the Conquest Points cap when .
•Before Wrath of the Lich King came out, less than one percent of the playerbase actually experienced Sunwell.
Dungeons and Raids
•There is a possibility of another troll dungeon, as some trolls live on an island off the coast of Pandaria.
•Blizzard would have liked to do a 15 man raid size if they were starting from scratch today. However, for now they are sticking with both 10 and 25 man.
•Raid tiers should last roughly four months, with content updates also coming between the larger raid updates. This could mean we would see a patch every two months or so.
•Anger is the Sha world boss in Kun-Lai Summit, appearing every few hours or so.
•Fear is a Sha boss in the Dread Wastes, possessing the Mantid Queen and causing havoc.
•Each world boss will have a unique mount in their loot table.
•Blizzard will be revisiting the shared 10 and 25 man lockout to make sure it is still the right thing.
•If you win a roll in LFR and the boss has no item for you, you will get gold instead.
•The new LFR loot system will grant a bonus roll when you have an item purchased from one of the Pandaren factions. These tokens can also be used to purchase the normal epic gear that is usually associated with factions. This extra roll works in all three difficulty levels.
Classes
•Monks will have autoattack, as gameplay just didn't feel right without it.
•Visible librams and quivers may not make it in time for Mists of Pandaria.
•Shaman Level 90 talents were in game! One improves Unleash Elements to provide a better bonus for each imbue type. The second removes the cooldown on your Fire and Earth Elemental Totems and allows you to control them. The third is a blast of elemental energy in a cone on a 15 sec cooldown.
Glyphs
• Warlock
•Minor glyph that gives Eye of Kilrogg the ability to place your Demonic Circle at the cost of stealth.
•Minor glyph that gives felguard with a random two-handed sword, two-handed axe, or polearm when you summon him.
• Druid
•A new minor glyph that allow druids to have a random coloring in cat and bear form has been added.
•A new minor glyph that allow druids to stay in tree form has been added.
•A new minor glyph that changes a druid's aquatic form into a Orca has been added.
•A new minor glyph that changes a druid's travel form into a white stag has been added. Other players can ride you while in this form.
•A new minor glyph that changes a druid's moonkin form into a moonkin spirit has been added.
Professions
•Lorewalkers might be worked in to Archaeology somehow, perhaps granting skill ups in some way.
•There are now multiple different cooking specializations; steaming, frying, broiling. Each is related to one of the primary stats, like Agility. When you level one of the specializations to 600, you are able to make all of the feasts.
•Inscription may get something new, like a staff that you upgrade as you level inscription. This will combat the fatigue that comes from creating hundreds of glyphs to level.
•Archaeology may get random creature spawns from digging that will drop more fragments when killed. It also may get a rare drop that will transport you to the next dig site.
Lore Figures
•Vol'jin will make an appearance at some point during the expansion.
•Blizzard has talked about turning Jaina's hair all white because of the shock, and her becoming this very violent and dangerous mage.
•Garrosh has become corrupted and has been doing some really nasty things beneath Orgrimmar.
•There may be a Labours of Hercules style quest chain that you do for Varian to show you more of the story and let you get to know him better.
