WoW subscription numbers

[BenBos]

Which is true for most players... the majority of th eplayers do not care about those numbers the least, they're not worrying in any way, so as long as we can play why bother?

Yep and like I stated it: with cross realm play regrouping players from a REGION wide population, Azeroth will be populated more than ever, even when it would loose 90% of its 10.000.000 players.

It is a conclusion lots of these long time WOW haters don't like.

I don't mind.

[velde046]

. please talk me through why the SSD makes such a difference. what extra information gets loaded from the hard drive when you cross into a CRZ zone, as opposed to crossing into a normal zone? surely the only extra information needed relates to who is there from other servers, which is going to be data coming from the Blizzard server. or do you know details of the internal workings of CRZ that arent available to the rest of us?

SSD does make a HUGE difference really. Got one during Wrath and before that loading into Dalaran was very sluggish to say the least, after installing the SSD it would load in a second or two. The reason is that once you go into a zone, the server pushes data ab out what objects, NPC's, players etc. are in the zone and then the client needs to load the relevant data from the harddisk to render all the stuff etc. Think models and textures. On a normal harddisk this takes significantly longer than SSD.

[Noah37]

All I know is Mal'Ganis is still booming as ever. There was significant drops during Cata, I myself even unsubbed for a period and rarely played when I was subbed. Mists has been almost a renaissance, the game feels more fresh, I actually want to get on pretty much every day, and with the people I know/hang around, they say the same things and think it is as fun as it was back in the days of BC and WotLK. But alas, that is just my biased evidence to counter your biased evidence that we argue over arbitrarily.

[Huehuecoyotl]

The problem with slow hard disks is that the data can't be transferred fast enough to your central memory.

Server information is limited to x,y,z positioning and simple data stats.

ALL the rest of the info (graphical data of the worlds and avatars) comes from your local client which resides for 99% on your hard disk.

As a result IF I wanted to port to Stormwind with a fully populated city, I load it up and get displayed in less than a second on SSD technology.

Crossing zones for me is complete seamless due to this extreme fast loading of new world/avatar information coming from the personal hard disk.

The actual data coming from the Blizzard servers is just reference data, nothing else. Just a few bytes per mili second.

Good advice: the FIRST thing you need to purchase for an MMORPG is the best HD's...

Actually you can find on You Tube THOUSANDS of videos which demonstrates this seamless playing between zones. The ones having problems are those with lousy hardware in HD's and graphic cards (500K video memory for example).

As SSD's become very cheap these days, I don't see why it would be a problem to include it in a buget PC. For example: the IPad would be impossible to manufacture without SSD's.

so if this is true, explain why crossing into a CRZ zone causes lag, but crossing into a normal zone doesnt. what EXTRA information is coming from the hard drive when you cross into a CRZ zone?

your answer makes no sense.

---------- Post added 2012-12-21 at 02:13 PM ----------

SSD does make a HUGE difference really. Got one during Wrath and before that loading into Dalaran was very sluggish to say the least, after installing the SSD it would load in a second or two. The reason is that once you go into a zone, the server pushes data ab out what objects, NPC's, players etc. are in the zone and then the client needs to load the relevant data from the harddisk to render all the stuff etc. Think models and textures. On a normal harddisk this takes significantly longer than SSD.

again, doesnt answer my original question. CRZ zones cause lag for me. what extra information are they loading compared to a normal zone?

[Pann]

complete false.

There are only a few bytes between server and client data in coms.. Those are only reference positioning data and coordinates (very small packets)...

While HUGE MASSES of graphical data (100's megabytes) need to be switched between your LOCAL memory management system and graphic cards...

The bottle neck in this case is clearly the local client HD/memory management/graphic cards.

Proof ? You can find MANY examples of seamless crossing between zones in WOW on You Tube.

As you stated there are many videos on Youtube that show seamless crossing between zones (although I'm not sure how many of them would involve CRZs), when I first started playing my P4 with 1GB ram was more than capable with loading zones seamlessly. Now I have two different PCs both with SSDs that both suffer from a slight delay when entering a CRZ. What additional data would they be loading?

[traen]

Subscription numbers is pretty useless information.

Blizzard gives the total subscriber information, including asian players. And they are more than 60% of the whole wow population (maybe even more now).
What would it be for you if 5 more million asians started to play wow and wow got 15 million subs instead of 10 million?

Want to get the real statistics? Its easy. Gather statistics on your own realm. How many people do you have online during prime hours - thats what is most important for your gameplay.

Wowprogress allows you to get some basic statistics as well, like how many guilds raid on your realm. You can compare this number with old wotlk-cata data. But obviously you need some brains to analyse this data properly, because mop is not over yet and in the beginning of cata much more guilds played in "true oldschool" 25man guilds.

[BenBos]

When you cross in multi server CR zones you simply load more graphical avatar information as the zone has more data of avatars in them.

Client server coms have always been about very simple data structures like control strings or coordinates.

All other data, 99.9% of it, is already on your local system and that system simply needs to have a good data management (of which the SSD is many times faster than a slow rotating hard disk).

HD's, data pipe lines on your main card, graphics cards with too little meomory, etc... are the bottleneck here.

As I said: you can find dozens of excellent seamless world travel over CRZ on the internet.

The ones with the bad examples are those with the lousy PC clients.

I predict that within one/two years no one uses the term "Realm" anymore as it will be an old legacy system.

Titan will be structured with this in mind from the very start.

[traen]

When you cross in multi server CR zones you simply load more graphical avatar information as the zone has more data of avatars in them.

What graphical avatar are you talking about O_o. Your client gets nothing but item IDs from server. Also there is no difference if you fly into your own city with 100 people from your own server or to crz zone in means of data transfer. Also you won't get none of the other players or monster data until you come close enough to them.

The real reason for this few-seconds lag is that you are transferred to a different server. It takes time for new server to load all the data about you(like quests completed, your phase, etc), and it takes your client time to reload all the initial data from the new server.

Its no different from logging into a game or using /reload command, but the client does it without loading screen and does not have to reload lua scripts.

[BenBos]

What graphical avatar are you talking about O_o. Your client gets nothing but item IDs from server. Also there is no difference if you fly into your own city with 100 people from your own server or to crz zone in means of data transfer. Also you won't get none of the other players or monster data until you come close enough to them.

The real reason for this few-seconds lag is that you are transferred to a different server. It takes time for new server to load all the data about you(like quests completed, your phase, etc), and it takes your client time to reload all the initial data from the new server.

Its no different from logging into a game or using /reload command, but the client does it without loading screen and does not have to reload lua scripts.

Of course it is an AND AND AND story like any lag issue someone might experience.

But really: try to do the following:

Log in on a full server in a well populated city in prime time;

the fewer the (milli) seconds it takes to show all avatars around you, the fewer hic ups you'll see in CRZ technology.

The internet is full of movies with seamless crossing over CRZ's.

As I said: with a 120 GB SSD, a modest 2 Gigabyte graphics card and I7 CPU with a quality motherboard I don't get glitches.

Let alone a "few seconds lag" : it simply does not happen on me (and thousands of video clips on Youtube prove it).

Oh I see this is the new hot thread perhaps of the WOW killer haters.

Just a joke. But I already see the picture...

Laughable at best.

You DO know "switching servers" takes ONE IP address rerout ? Right ?

Do you know how much that that takes: type "tracert on your MS DOS editor with your LOCAL IP adresses..."...

---------


Edit: In fact I just tried it in 3 different CRZ crossings and my FPS did not even show a signifiant drop in frames per second, with all settings on high, it never went below 58 FPS or higher then 65 FPS when crossing CRZ's.

it is complete seamless on this computer. Normal since rerouting IP's on a same routed network takes indeed 1 miliseconds.

[Huehuecoyotl]

In fact I just tried it in 3 different CRZ crossings and my FPS did not even show a signifiant drop in frames per second, with all settings on high, it never went below 58 FPS or higher then 65 FPS when crossing CRZ's.

it is complete seamless on this computer. Normal since rerouting IP's on a same routed network takes indeed 1 miliseconds.

congratulations, you dont get this problem. fact is, i did. repeatedly. when crossing into CRZ zones. i first noticed it flying over the north part of org, where i would drift into ashzara from time to time. i have a very good spec computer, a high speed broadband internet. i never had any problems moving across normal zones.

you seem to have failed to answer the question that myself and several other people have raised. you stated flat out that using an SSD would solve the problem. you never explained why. either you have inside technical knowledge of the working of the CRZ, or you have proof to back up your statement. or you were flat out making things up. either explain why the SSD will help, or front up and admit you were talking nonsense.

of course, you wont do any of these things. you will ignore the question. answer some other question as if you were answering mine. restate the same things you have said 20 times in this thread already. chuck out another couple of bits of technical fog to try and cover your tracks. oh, and probably describe me as a "hater" while you do it. standard BenBos tactics, one and all.

[Coolit]

No idea what the numbers will be but I'll be very surprised if the sub number isn’t closer to pre MoP levels than they were last earning report. Expansions only produce short term gain and that’s true of every game not just WoW, so we'll just need to wait and see.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

complete false.

There are only a few bytes between server and client data in coms..

The issue isn't on the client, it's with the zone server. If it's swamped with hits it can't process them fast enough, resulting in glitching and lag as a player is playing catch up.

Can put up 10 front ends to load balance for one data server, but it's still one data server having to process the calls. That's the whole bottleneck.

When passing through 3 zones pretty quickly it can even stall the WoW client, as it'll disconnect from Battle.net.

[thewallofsleep]

I think the question everyone in this thread should be asking is what relevance does knowing the current sub numbers have on anyone's lives?

[dryankem]

I think the question everyone in this thread should be asking is what relevance does knowing the current sub numbers have on anyone's lives?

^^^^^^^^^^ If you were here, I'd buy you a beer.

[IxilaFA]

I think the question everyone in this thread should be asking is what relevance does knowing the current sub numbers have on anyone's lives?

Actually people asked it earlier, but I don't blame you for not wanting to read what was essentially 22 pages of ridiculous arguing. Usually when someone brings it up, another person retorts with the fact that lower sub numbers means less content, and the overall decay of the game, thus ruining your playstyle.

I don't agree with it at all, just warning you of what kind of responses this post will get.

[MoanaLisa]

Request that everyone gets back on topic for the thread. This is not a thread about CRZ technology either pro or con. So if that's what you want to talk about start yet another thread about that. If that's all we really have to talk about in this thread then it's time to close it - ML

[Osmeric]

I think the question everyone in this thread should be asking is what relevance does knowing the current sub numbers have on anyone's lives?

Are you interested in how the game will change in the future? Then you also should be interested in sub numbers, as those drive that.

[IxilaFA]

Are you interested in how the game will change in the future? Then you also should be interested in sub numbers, as those drive that.

I don't believe this in the least bit. The only thing that might change is if more people quit, Blizzard may start pumping out faster content. They make millions of dollars each month of subscriptions, they can't use the excuse of "Sorry guys, no raids this year since 500,000 people quit last quarter!"

[dryankem]

I don't believe this in the least bit. The only thing that might change is if more people quit, Blizzard may start pumping out faster content. They make millions of dollars each month of subscriptions, they can't use the excuse of "Sorry guys, no raids this year since 500,000 people quit last quarter!"

I think he's more worried about blizzard panicking and either nerfing the game to the ground or giving epic flying mounts for people just signing up, but I don't buy that either. WOW is a giant and it didn't happen by accident.

Worst case scenario Blizzard makes an adjustment to the game that I really don't like (ie the limit of 11 toons per realm decreases in half), then I'll quit and find something new to play and save myself $15/month. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the game and subscription numbers aren't going to affect my enjoyment.

[Huehuecoyotl]

I don't believe this in the least bit. The only thing that might change is if more people quit, Blizzard may start pumping out faster content. They make millions of dollars each month of subscriptions, they can't use the excuse of "Sorry guys, no raids this year since 500,000 people quit last quarter!"

Cata gave us ultra hard heroics. lots of people left. lots. next thing you know, heroics are nerfed to the ground, and LFR hits earlier than originally intended (it was going to be a MoP feature). if enough people stop paying them money, Blizzard will do something, i guarantee you. this cash cow is too important to them now for them not to.