PTR Build 13162, WoW reaches 12M Players, Authenticator Changes

so if i did my math right
using just basic numbers not tax or anything like that
blizzards is making about 9.36 billion dollars a year on subscriptions alone
then add how much they make from blizzcon
why cant they just make it free

All these people talking about that quote being from Rise Against make me weep for humanity.

My head just exploded from the sheer amount of changes in the latest PTR build.

GREAT, now blizz plans on making it obrigatory on people to have authenticators! this isnt right guys, they shouldnt make a game feature that requires u to buy real life stuff in order to use it!! what next? you wont be able to do heroics if youre not wearing blizz hat?

Originally Posted by TheMobGoblin

Most Debit cards have credit card deal with them like mine is Visa so Ic an use it like a credit card.

I can confirm this for UK players, I have just ordered one and I was able to chose electron on the actual payment screen, and it included free delivery as well so it was only £6.29

From the blizzard EU store:

Shipping fees have been waived on this product to reduce the cost to the consumer, and the new price for each Authenticator has been adjusted to cover the new lower shipping cost (6.99€ / 6.29 GBP per unit). For example, if you purchase 1 unit, the final price will be 6.99€. If you purchased 2, the price would be 13.98€, and so on, with no additional shipping costs. The special price is only available for orders composed exclusively of authenticators. You can order up to 3 Authenticators at once. As a result, shipment tracking is not available and your order may take up to 3 weeks to arrive. The authenticator may be associated with your World of Warcraft account(s) through Account Management when it is received.

So does this 12m thing factor in the scads and scads of gold sellers and hackers? LOL

Originally Posted by Cruckesmus

GREAT, now blizz plans on making it obrigatory on people to have authenticators! this isnt right guys, they shouldnt make a game feature that requires u to buy real life stuff in order to use it!! what next? you wont be able to do heroics if youre not wearing blizz hat?

No, Blizz is allowing your Guild Leader to chose to require you to have an Authenticator in order to hold certain ranks. Blizz is requiring nothing. If your guild leader chooses to use this function it's his/her choice. I would. I've seen too many guild banks cleaned out by hacked people. It's happened to both of my current guilds at least once, several times in the case of my larger 25 man guild. All "officer" and "raider" level players are required to have Authenticators in both guilds now. We use the "Puppy Test".

This is a good change. It takes something a lot of guild were doing anyway (either just by relying on their members to be honest or by looking at Core Hound Pups), and builds it in directly.

Originally Posted by SadWarrior

Id like to know how many of those are Europe and USA accounts.

About 40%, from last available info (beyond the press release).

Note that, regarding asian accounts, those accounts work differently. Most asian accounts work on a by-the-hour model rather than the subscription we use. As a result, people having multiple accounts is more common than here: as long as you don't play a given char, your time doesn't decrease, so it doesn't matter if your 6 chars are on one account or six accounts. At least with six, you can multibox if you need to (and that's why they count them as active if they logged in during the last 30 days - you can let your alts lie dormant for months if you multi-account)

That's also why their revenue is low compared to 12 million x 12 months x 13-15$. The asian market is larger, but brings a lot less (and the local operators actually get the money from the players, so Blizzard's revenue here is what the game operators pay back Blizzard... but they don't incur operating costs on that)

"* Suffering now has a 5 yards range, 10 yards radius unchanged."

Look's like I'll be playing Ele Shaman on Cata instead of Warlock.

Originally Posted by Dragonwing

"Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."

Who is this quoted from?

Its a song by Rise Against

Originally Posted by Spoonman

Its a song by Rise Against

No. Just no. The internet has enough illiterates already.

I can understand companies want to advertise their numbers. It shows the strength of the product.

For those saying wow 12 million is a big number, just take the xbox 360 live service, they topped what 20 million in 2009.

What's going to be interesting is the new mmos that are wanting to cross over pc and the xbox live services. IF, and that is a big IF, they can pull it off the market there is already huge. I know personally I spend close to 100$ a month on my xbox live, not including the monthly fee. I like downloading stuff.

Which also opens it up as the perfect market for a microtransaction setup. Looks interesting.

Originally Posted by lunaspike

I can understand companies want to advertise their numbers. It shows the strength of the product.

For those saying wow 12 million is a big number, just take the xbox 360 live service, they topped what 20 million in 2009.

Except that XboxLive service is a multi-purpose service. You can download games, music, movies, buy accessories, and play hundreds of thousands of different games. World of Warcraft is a single service, a single game. If all 20 million XboxLive subscrivers ONLY played Halo, then yeah, these numbers would be comparable. Otherwise it's like saying KFC sells more food than a school bake sale, the context is totally wrong.

Originally Posted by lunaspike

I can understand companies want to advertise their numbers. It shows the strength of the product.

For those saying wow 12 million is a big number, just take the xbox 360 live service, they topped what 20 million in 2009.

It is a big number for an mmo, you have to take all figures in relation to what they are pertinent to.

Originally Posted by neatlynx

It is a big number for an mmo, you have to take all figures in relation to what they are pertinent to.

That was my point behind saying that. People go "oh 12 million that's huge" but they don't seem to get that wow is an mmo, and it's fun. It isn't to take anything away from them at all.

Man people get so defensive about WoW

Originally Posted by Zagnaphein

Gz! We are 12 million no lifers! Hazaaaaaaaaaaa! :P.

You are able to easily write a java application that replicates a valid mobile authenticator. For this to happen there are 3 parts to the authenticator algorithm otherwise the code would be invalid. Two of the parts are easy to get the serial and the current time for Blizzard. The harder part which requires an infected phone or computer is the internal file that handles the "token" that is in a encrypted file. Because phones are unable to process huge algorithm and there is not normally a need to have a well encrypted file on a mobile device the file is easy enough to decode. In the end the hacker harvested the serial, and this token from somebody. They cannot access your account unless they have your username and password.

The user you quoted made a valid statement but much of it was "incorrect" or allowed people to come to the wrong conclusion. They are unable to generate new authenticators they can only generate authenticators they already know about. They could have written an application to automate the harvesting of said serials and gather the required data I suppose but its still miss leading.

Originally Posted by Sterb

Originally Posted by Spoonman

Its a song by Rise Against

No. Just no. The internet has enough illiterates already.

I know poor old Mark Twain is turning over in his grave.

Originally Posted by Sparkymisslecat

I don't think that would work. One of the posters above said it costs them $30 to get an authenticator in Canada because it is classified as an "encryption device" and has some kind of an import tax I assume? The same seems to go for other countries as well. If this is correct, it would raise the cost of the retail box by a lot.

Also, they wouldn't be able to get authenticators to people who downloaded the game, and many people who already have authenticators would be left holding an "extra" one for no purpose.

Perhaps instead Blizzard could include a coupon - redeemable for an authenticator - with perhaps a rebate for people out of country who have to pay for the added tariff? Dunno.

Except any program designed to intercept ANY authenticator code means the account is already compromised. So using a phone emulator is a perfectly valid solution to those people with no other choice.

Blizzard is meet the current demand for the physical authenticator because they are limited to the number of authenticators they can buy from the company that makes them. The company in question has customers with higher demand then Blizzard.

Originally Posted by Alayea

I know poor old Mark Twain is turning over in his grave.

The only problem is Mark Twain said "The report of my death was an exaggeration"

So they were right with Rage Against, more's the pity

Originally Posted by Leonora

An interesting observation I read on another forum is that this number of 12 million is not all that it seems. Apparently (I did not check it myself, so sorry if I copy too blindly ) numbers actually have even dwindled a bit during WotLK; the only reason it went slightly up again is because right now there is some deal in Korea where buying wow classic delivers a free month sc2, for in total a sharply reduced price. And, possibly, the lowpriced expansion in China. The question is how USA and EU developed over time.

The same observation mentioned that during the rather casual-challenging times of BC, customer numbers grew pretty fast; during the WotLK period, numbers have stabilised or even dropped a bit. So despite Blizzards attempt to make the game more casual-friendly, the lack of challenge may not have brought Blizzard the result they wanted. If that observation holds and is seen by Blizzard, it gives hope that Blizzard will stay focussed on bringing some challenge back in the game, rather than listening too carefully to requests for nerfs.

12 million active accounts is 12 million active accounts, just because there is a promotion, changes nothing.

If you are unable to "check" yourself how are we suppose take you at your word.

While it is not exactly a PR stunt it has to be taken at what it is, there are 12 million active accounts, the more interesting numbers are the number of inactive accounts that are not permanently closed.