Max says:

If anyone of my WoW-playing “friends” email me, I’ll beat their heads in.

August 6th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

The Shed says:

Jesus CHRIST

August 6th, 2008 at 3:57 pm

cullnean says:

why the WoW hate?

August 6th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

cullnean says:

nah i would go with “meh”

but the wow hate is annoying its almost like “i havent played the longest journey but my mate says its shit coz he saw some screenshots so it must be rubbish, also if i hate something popular i must be cool yeah?”

WOW is quite a good game imho

August 6th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

cullnean says:

rubbish post ejected

August 6th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

Bobsy says:

Incidentally, I don’t buy into the whole 11m player thing. Where exactly do Blizzard get that figure from? Are they counting accounts or unique players (which is to say, how many of those accounts are goldfarmers)? What about banned accounts, and players setting up new accounts after being banned? What about trial accounts? I’ve set up two accounts in my time; are they counting both, or the one I continue to pay for?

August 6th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

ape says:

Poor Blizzard with such shallow pockets and minuscule install base no wonder they need to bring in those player.

August 6th, 2008 at 4:23 pm

The Poisoned Sponge says:

I don’t really think it’s WoW hate, I think it’s more people who used to play WoW, got deathly bored of it, and now can’t understand why on earth people still play it….. at least, that’s how I see it.

August 6th, 2008 at 4:24 pm

darkripper says:

Those Blizzard folk could teach crack dealers a thing or two.

In case you haven’t noticed, the whole videogame industry is more similar to the drug industry than to the movie or music ones.

August 6th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

Counterculture passed me right by says:

@yutt

Believe me, I’ve tried to maintain those friendships over the years, but it gets difficult when all they want to do is talk about or play WoW. There was no wilful distancing involved and I still, to this day, try and strike up conversations with them just to see how _they_ are doing, to see if they’ve gotten themselves out of the hole, but all I get is “game progress this, imaginary items that”. They tell me they’ve gone past the point of enjoying the game, and feel trapped because of obligation to their guilds, yet that stuff tumbles from their mouths every time they open them. It makes me sad seeing bright, fun people that I care about become over-weight, black-eyed zombies.

Hobby is not the correct word for the reality of the situation. If you weren’t being facetious I’d be happy you had no understanding of what I’m talking about.

August 6th, 2008 at 4:30 pm

Dexton says:

Alot of people that hate wow are ex-addicts that put on this lady doth protest too much front of hate to disguise their cravings for more wow crack.

It was a great game and I have plenty of happy memories from the years I spend playing it, along with a bunch of bad ones related to both in game stuff and the real life stuff I neglected for it.

@Bobsy I am guessing Blizzard count 11 million active accounts. That is 11 million accounts that paid money into the Blizzard vaults this month, how many of those accounts were actually played isn’t really as important in gauging the games success.

August 6th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

cyrenic says:

Here’s how Blizzard defines an active subscriber. I imagine it’s pretty accurate:

World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.

August 6th, 2008 at 4:47 pm

Noc says:

You know, years and years back, when Warcraft III was the new thing, I read an article about this “World of Warcraft” thing that Blizzard was doing. It was like, what, Everquest with Warcraft? It looked like a stupid idea, and I was sure it wouldn’t take off.

I mean, who needs that in an RTS?

Seriously, though, I want to note this in reference to what I said about the WoAoR release in the previous article. Superficially this is bribery, but it’s also the removal of a barrier: it looks like it’s engineered so veteran players will start a new character and play along with the new folk. Which removes the element of stepping into a big ‘ole world where everyone knows what’s going on but you, so you lag behind because you don’t have anyone to help you figure out the nuances of the game.

Not that WoW’s a prohibitively complex game, but I suspect it’s still a double-handful for people who aren’t familiar with MMOs.

August 6th, 2008 at 4:47 pm

Leelad says:

Bought another account for the mount and remain happy. not to bothered about the XP gains but I have an account to give away should one of my pals wish to partake.

August 6th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

cullnean says:

what to do, what to do?

resub to WoW, eve or give air rivals a shot?

August 6th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Biscuitry says:

It seems like a sensible enough idea to get new subscriptions, but… isn’t everyone even remotely interested in WoW already playing anyway?

August 6th, 2008 at 5:08 pm

wcaypahwat says:

I see people who play WoW, and don’t even have their own computer. They’re effectively paying not only their sub fee’s, but also an hourly fee to play the game. And half the time they just stand around some town.

Then they tell me I should start playing.

Also, im great at pretending to know what they’re talking about

August 6th, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Subject 706 says:

Kids! Just say NO to the MMO!

August 6th, 2008 at 6:40 pm

RiptoR says:

WoW still exists? I thought most of the players would have gotten a life by now… Guess you must never underestimate the power of the ‘internets’ :p

August 6th, 2008 at 9:35 pm

Verdugo says:

I don’t do MMO’s. Mainly because of the Pay-to-play stuff and it bores me when you just click on enemy and wait and see who wins.

August 6th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

Gorgeras says:

Not playing WoW again until they make it the Alliance VS Horde PvP-fest they were promoting it as from 2003-2005 which never happened. Will be giving Warhammer a go.

Honestly, if the box had advertised grinds, raids, bad AI, communist in-game economics and an undynamic world, I would have told them to cram it in their ass on that fine january afternoon in 2005. It ended up being the complete opposite of Warcraft as I understood it.

August 7th, 2008 at 12:01 am

Konky Dong IV: Heartbreak on Moonbeam Mountain says:

I actually do think WoW is on the downturn.

Myself and just about everyone has grown fairly tired of WoW’s formula. I (and a few of my friends) got into the WotLK beta and even that has done little to rekindle our interest. WoW has been a truly great experience and it won’t die anytime soon, but I think a lot of people are hungry for something new and fresh. WoW is such a good game that I binged on it for the past four years. The “quest/grind to level and then raid for loot, rinse and repeat” style MMO really holds no interest for me any more.

I’ll tell you what I really want. In my ultimate dream scenario, the new Star Wars MMO comes out and it has FPS combat, a complex, intricate crafting system (that goes far beyond just being another menu on your toolbar), and a heavy emphasis on exploration. Also space battles, free-for-all pvp, and the ability to customize and create my own ship. And bronze bikinis. Yup. That’s the game that would get me to quit my job.

August 7th, 2008 at 3:44 am

Dan says:

Gold spam outside of Orgrimmar? Get back to the bank there, you level 1 Troll hunter, you.

I’m getting bored of WoW now. I still do 2 raids per week with my guild, since I don’t want to abandon the friendships I’ve made there, but other than that I don’t touch it. I’ve got a WotLK beta key and tried it out, but got bored very quickly. It’s all very pretty, but still just the same old “Kill 10 boars/Kobolds/giant vikings” grind.

August 7th, 2008 at 10:05 am

Paul Moloney says:

“I’ve never played WoW. I don’t really like multiplayer games.”

I think 99% of my time in Azeroth has been single-player, though not always by choice. The last time I played WoW (I tend to play for 6 months, then take a break) it was hard to form casual groups to take on particular quests - bearing in mind I was still playing a late 50s level character. And I’ve no interest in hard-core guild nonsense. I bought “Burning Crusade” just before my last break, and haven’t actually installed it.

P.

August 7th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

EyeMessiah says:

I got banned for botting, but not in a bad way.

I think wow’s death-throes will last so long that it will put HL1 CS to shame. I’m hoping that as WoW dies Blizz will gradually eliminate barriers to play in ever more desperate attempts to bring in new players (e.g. above, the quest XP buff & the pvp tourney - except these are just the start!) and hold on to old ones, and that the ‘opening-up’ of WoW will have some sort of effect on the development of new MMPORGS. Hopefully this effect will involve altering player expectations so that the next generation of MMPORG designers will be incentivised to make their games less like jobs and more like, uh, games.

EDIT: current ad banner is wowcursors.com.

August 7th, 2008 at 6:51 pm

mechazawa says:

I’m a bit late, but here’s how good that program is. If you know the game, you can hit level 58 in less than 14 hours /played.

14. Hours.

August 8th, 2008 at 11:20 am

KindredPhantom says:

“And hopefully Warcraft will be able to scrape through the 12 million player mark that all MMOs must fight to reach.”
Haha.

August 8th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

Shane says:

…Hello everybody, I am an Addict.

Now that I have admitted I have a problem, we can continue.

I’ve been an avid WoW player for about three years, and I still consider the game, though ends up wasting alot of time, fun.. it is still an over all good game. That may be do to the constant changes and patches that blizzard continues to put out to make it interesting, but for me it’s simply about the player versus player environment, though there is alot of fun to be had doing the quests as well (That is if you actually take the time to read what they are and say, there’s a lot to appreciate in the witty comments and such the random NPCs make.

My biggest backing on WOW is that it’s also a very, what I will loosely say “Social” game, where you kind of feel like you’re in a giant chat box with dragons swords and killing… I often find myself logging on for a good amount of time running around in circles in game, while talking to various people.

This is no different then sitting on AIM or Myspace for hours talking to your friends, in fact it seems more entertaining that way for me So I shall continue to support the game mostly…
(If you play it already, however I will not encourage ANYBODY to join it now, the game is a curse and will suck you in and waste away.. it’s like meth, and yes your teeth will fall out. For me it’s going down hill with the new expansion and soon i will simply be paying 15$ a month to have a fun instant messenger… screw you blizzard)

Blizzard also does not spend the money they earn from its however million customers, in the best ways, considering the in game and out of game support is pretty crumy (grant it the out of game is much better then some others I’ve tried to deal with.) I’m sure there are other flaws that I don’t feel like calling out do to the lack of motivation.

Lastly! I still manage to keep a real social life as well, and have friends that don’t play WOW. <3

August 10th, 2008 at 9:19 pm