Patch 5.0.4 Interview, Mists of Pandaria Dungeon Previews, Blue Posts, TCG Art

[Fermion]

So, you would rather wait hours upon hours to get to even PLAY because the servers are too full to accommodate another player?

Trust me, cross realm zones is a better idea than to overload servers and have constant frame rate drops and long queue times to even get into the fucking game.

The thing is - cross realm zones aren't really what's needed, if anything in WoW you want as few peeps in a zone as possible to reduce competition for mobs and resources (particularly since most/all elite mobs/group quests are now gone and shared tagging of mobs is still few and far between). What you need is a good population to support crafting and trading - and a decent city based population to allow pugs to form (exactly the opposite of what cross-realm functionality is bringing).

Back in TBC waiting times to get on our realm (Hellscream Europe) were anything from 15-40 mins at peak times - I'd happily accept that tbh. I'm sure those on realms that waited 2 hours plus wouldn't and that's fair enough - but that's what balancing the population is about. Of course they could develop something akin to GW2's overflow servers which are working very well indeed. Heck they'd probably have enough server capacity left over from shutting down the underpopulated realms to not require any new hardware - just reconfiguration of the existing architecture. But I guess their dev team is now so small that such a grand project is just out of the realms of possibility, sigh.

[Deleted]

Unless you can recruit people from your newly implemented cross realm zones, low populated servers will have a hard time forming challenge mode groups.

[Farabee]

After reading GC's response about Golden Lotus rep gating the other reps and being a horrid grind (which it is) I am thoroughly convinced he hasn't even played his own game and is so up his own ass that he cannot see sunlight.

"It's not just 'Kill 6 Mogu one day and then kill 6 Mogu the next...'" except it is literally, EXACTLY that. Every day, for the 3 weeks that I did Golden Lotus dailies, well, daily that particular quest was dropped into my rotation for Vale dailies. That is literally the most bold-faced lie I have ever heard from a gaming company, even trumping Casey Hudson's pre-release claims about the ME3 endings. Fact is, the way GL is designed right now, it won't last until 5.1 due to the amount of subs that will drop off after people hit 90 and realize that they need to grind for months to get all the items they need for their professions.

[darkpower]

The thing is - cross realm zones aren't really what's needed, if anything in WoW you want as few peeps in a zone as possible to reduce competition for mobs and resources (particularly since most/all elite mobs/group quests are now gone and shared tagging of mobs is still few and far between). What you need is a good population to support crafting and trading - and a decent city based population to allow pugs to form (exactly the opposite of what cross-realm functionality is bringing).

Thing is, people also have a wanting to do quests in a group to get a quest done quicker (like a kill quest). If you see someone doing that same quest, then you could invite them into a group, and then you could do the quest together, perhaps making a new in-game friend in the process. They give you their Battletag or Real ID, and you're in business in case you want to ever group up with them again for a raid or something (which is NOT A BAD THING, since this isn't exactly a single player game, as much as we've forgotten that).

A way for the city population to grow is...I don't know...GETTING MORE PEOPLE TO WANT TO PLAY THE GAME!! We complain about the low pop servers...and okay, I can see your point, but when Blizz goes and adds the "hand holding" things for new people, we suddenly cry foul because "we had to play the game blind, so you should have to play the game blind, too." That's not good business practice. You want people to want to continue playing the game, not throw up their arms in frustration and give up because they can't understand the controls or whatnot and are never given even a manual. And with the way some players have become so elitist and antisocial in this game, it's easy to see why there have been low populated servers. Nothing can get a population up more than fresh blood that's willing to try the game out...if we give them the chance.

Back in TBC waiting times to get on our realm (Hellscream Europe) were anything from 15-40 mins at peak times - I'd happily accept that tbh. I'm sure those on realms that waited 2 hours plus wouldn't and that's fair enough - but that's what balancing the population is about. Of course they could develop something akin to GW2's overflow servers which are working very well indeed. Heck they'd probably have enough server capacity left over from shutting down the underpopulated realms to not require any new hardware - just reconfiguration of the existing architecture. But I guess their dev team is now so small that such a grand project is just out of the realms of possibility, sigh.

Or they don't want the problems that could come with it. You're happy for the queue times, but you're not the only person playing this game. When you get into the game (finally), what are you expecting to see?

- The exact same thing you're complaining about with the cross server realms. Would actually defeat the purpose. Instead of cross-server which does what you suggest it will, we merge servers to make things more populated (but closed), and have the EXACT SAME THING HAPPEN THAT THE X-SERVER THING IS THOUGHT OF TO CAUSE!
- Then you have issues with frame rate drops on some computers. Have enough people in one place at one time, and you're bound to see even better configured computers stumble to keep up. NO ONE wants that, and not everyone has the best computer in the world.
- Of course, you have the queue times...which I'm not sure how you can sit there and say that you would accept that, especially if your an altoholic and might have to wait to log onto an alt for 20 minutes every single time because you need your JC toon to cut something so your tank (BS/Mining) can be better efficient for your scheduled raid that your group is waiting on you for. It adds up!

I'm in no rush to play GW2, but that sounds like a complicated way to do things (and I would say very counterproductive and somewhat showing what they think the state of that game is if they have to shut down servers...way to kill two birds in one stone with the spin on that: saying that such a move is possible without drawbacks while shamelessly promoting the "awesomeness" of the competition).

[Thistlefur]

In response to the few. The talent system as it is - is pointless. They might as well have had talents be automatic based on what spec you choose instead of the honor of picking between 3 talents in a tier that do the exact same thing in result just with different mechanics. More to the point in one response is who the hell do you think you are telling someone how to play? Maybe for them the 6 points they put into a talent for them wasn't wasted. If anything this BS mentality infected the wrong people who should have known better......the devs. For example I always played BM on my hunter even back in vanilla. If a guild was too moronic to accept it then I found one that did. Everyone plays this game for themselves not you, me or even the devs. The need if anything to make the talents more detailed and comprehensive. What I would love again on the BM hunter in the future is if they "revamp" the talents again back to the tiered tree like before with one exception. If you were to pick Beast Master for your spec you would get 3 totally different talent trees to choose from that no one else has. Going on: Tracker [This would be a weapons heavy BM hunter with enhanced tracking and a sacrifice system very much like a warlock.] Final ability in this tier could be something akin to Tainted Blood Shot. A shot which coats the target with the heavy scent of blood causing your pet to go into a frenzy doing 300% damage till the pet dies from exhaustion other creatures in the area will also swarm and so damage to the target [like the crows], Companion would be very much like the Current tree [Cata] and finally Beast Champion [this would be a weaponless hunter who is totally dependent on his pets] This spec would allow 2 pets out at all times with the final spell of Pack Leader. Take the form of [Glyphed] and fight as a beast [Spell bar switch very much like a druid] beside your two constant companions and for the first 15 seconds all the beasts in your stable. now that would be an awesome way to tier. Not the rubbish we have now. Either give us more customizability or none. Make it where we go through a wizard and out pops the Character with all the stuff set.

[Ellixen]

According to the article dwarves are NOT done, still being worked on which is sad 'cause they should've been done by now as with orcs and humans, 50 bucks says we're not getting the updated models for x reason

[Deleted]

The Theramore Scenario is the pre Mists of Pandaria event. It was a tradeoff between making a sea battle event that would be played for two weeks or spending that time on expansion features that will last a year or two.

Im in no position to question this since it terms of logic this argument holds water but in terms of celebrating something it does sounds like someone/people cant see further that what beancounters are willing to show him/them. It's like people not bothering to celebrate christmas and cutting corners on everything to the point of not giving kids presents by telling them "Why get a christmas present when we can tell you how much we love you, also it's much cheaper and economical this way" sounds reasonable in terms of costs, but yeah... I think those who like to celebrate things know what Im trying to say. I just dont want to call blizz certain names here, Im better than that.

Yes we are not entitled to anything, Yes blizzard doesnt have to give us what we believe we should get, Yes blizzard doesnt have to love or care for us but still... this part of the interview is... kind of sad, depressing even.

What Im trying to say is that sometimes not everything has to have a invest return or look long term profitable on paper.

[Queen of Hamsters]

We MIGHT see the new models in MoP? No, NO no no no no! We NEED to see them in MoP! Honestly, the models are 8 years old! We want them asap and not MAYBE in 2 more years...

[lanerios]

again old as hell TCG art. So annoying that MMO champion keeps saying they're new. THEY'RE NOT >_>

[darkpower]

We MIGHT see the new models in MoP? No, NO no no no no! We NEED to see them in MoP! Honestly, the models are 8 years old! We want them asap and not MAYBE in 2 more years...

You DO realize that making new models takes time and manpower, right? Would love to see the magical process in which some people think these kind of things just magically happen overnight in the video game development world.

[Fermion]

Thing is, people also have a wanting to do quests in a group to get a quest done quicker (like a kill quest). If you see someone doing that same quest, then you could invite them into a group, and then you could do the quest together, perhaps making a new in-game friend in the process.

And pigs could fly, Unicorns could sprout from four leaved clovers and peace rule the world :P Iow that's a fabulous world you paint but not one I've seen regularly in WoW since mid-TBC and even then it was rare. I've actively invited people while out questing for the invites to be denied and peeps to continue killing mobs we could both share. And you still have the issues of resource sharing. WoW does _not_ foster cooperative play in the world, it never has beyond world pvp and never will with the current approach.

A way for the city population to grow is...I don't know...GETTING MORE PEOPLE TO WANT TO PLAY THE GAME!!

We're back to the unicorns again - let's be sensible rather than hopeful. There are servers out there with low thousands. Which at low play times may mean a few hundred or even low hundreds playing. Even at peak times all you need do is read the foras to see the complaints about how difficult low pops can make the game beyond doing LFD/LFR.

We complain about the low pop servers...and okay, I can see your point, but when Blizz goes and adds the "hand holding" things for new people, we suddenly cry foul because "we had to play the game blind, so you should have to play the game blind, too." That's not good business practice.

Neither is pissing off your long term customers either but they are fairly happy to do that.

Or they don't want the problems that could come with it. You're happy for the queue times, but you're not the only person playing this game. When you get into the game (finally), what are you expecting to see?

I'm fairly confident I said "I realise some peeps wouldn't be happy with that" - but what a short queue time DOES indicate is that it's a busy realm. If you're playing BF3 do you jump on a server with 3-4 peeps playing? Or with 30, 40, 60 peeps? I know what I do, I know what everyone I know does.

Then you have issues with frame rate drops on some computers. Have enough people in one place at one time, and you're bound to see even better configured computers stumble to keep up. NO ONE wants that, and not everyone has the best computer in the world.

We ran 40 man raids on computers with half the GPU power you can find in low end systems now and didn't suffer major issues. Most issues peeps have with "framerates" are imho and ime due to them running too high settings - SSAO isn't for everyone nice as it makes things look. WoW is actually very well optimised from a standpoint of responsiveness under stress. Having framerate issues? Drop your settings. Still having issues? Close down your other apps. And if you're really still having problems - probably time for a new pc since that GeForce 2 is pushing it now :P

I'm in no rush to play GW2, but that sounds like a complicated way to do things (and I would say very counterproductive and somewhat showing what they think the state of that game is if they have to shut down servers...way to kill two birds in one stone with the spin on that: saying that such a move is possible without drawbacks while shamelessly promoting the "awesomeness" of the competition).

This is lol - do you even know what they are? They allow you to play the game while waiting for your home world to become available. You can quest, you can gather, view guild chat, whisper friends, craft, buy stuff, blah blah blah - the only thing you cannot do is view certain realm specific data such as current state of WvW. It's a superb solution that works well.

[Nathiest]

"There is even a chance that we may see them during Mists of Pandaria."

lol!! good one Blizz.

[Deleted]

You DO realize that making new models takes time and manpower, right? Would love to see the magical process in which some people think these kind of things just magically happen overnight in the video game development world.

Why do people make excuses like this? For a game that cost as much as it does to play I set the expected standard a little higher.

[ShadowCrafter]

After trying the beta I can honestly say that these hc dungeons are terribly faceroll even with quest gear. I think it's worse then WOLTK. I guess thats why they have thrown challenge modes in. So the kids can still get all the HC dungeon loot while watching Monster High.

[Faldorf]

Hmm, still wondering about where that thing with Varian went, werent they gonna do some bad-ass thing to him before MoP, so that we all would get the feel and kind of "know" who he is?
I was really looking forward to that

[Collected]

I struggle to take anything they say about the talent system seriously now. Seems to be the same 'faults' each time. "Oh the old system was too complicated, but this one is much easier!". Will we hear the same prior to the next expansion I wonder. The "Too complicated/difficult to master, this is easier" thing could apply to pretty much the entire game.

[darkpower]

And pigs could fly, Unicorns could sprout from four leaved clovers and peace rule the world :P Iow that's a fabulous world you paint but not one I've seen regularly in WoW since mid-TBC and even then it was rare. I've actively invited people while out questing for the invites to be denied and peeps to continue killing mobs we could both share. And you still have the issues of resource sharing. WoW does _not_ foster cooperative play in the world, it never has beyond world pvp and never will with the current approach.

And you're counterargument brings up the antisocialness of the community. We want things to change, yet we're expecting Blizz to put a gun to our heads telling us to help others before we'll do that. Blizz can only do so much on their end to get us to go out there, explore the world, and get us to accept that others play the game and that we can help them out to become more sociable and thus increase our friend pool. We have to be the ones to actually USE the tools they give us. That's not a "unicorns" thing. That's the whole basis of being an MMO that, again, we've seem to forget, and you're thinking can not happen in WoW anymore. That's not Blizz's fault, and no amount of merging or cross-server thing will change that because Blizzard can't really force you to help, though they can shove it down your throat in saying that's part of the MMO experience.

Perhaps if you didn't want that MMO experience, maybe you shouldn't be playing an MMO!

We're back to the unicorns again - let's be sensible rather than hopeful. There are servers out there with low thousands. Which at low play times may mean a few hundred or even low hundreds playing. Even at peak times all you need do is read the foras to see the complaints about how difficult low pops can make the game beyond doing LFD/LFR.

You counter my point by...saying the exact same thing I was answering with the point you tried to counter with. You get new and more people to play the game, and before long, you get the whole "low populated server" thing not being as much of a problem. You're making this out to be a very hard process when it isn't. You encourage new people to play the game, give them the tools so they know what the hell they are doing and why they are clicking what they are clicking, you give them SOME heads up, and some incentive to continue playing, and you soon have (in theory) good players that will join a guild, get into raiding or whatever it is they like about the game, you have more population on said servers, and Blizz makes more money to introduce more features in the game.

Yet, we also have people who keep bitching about the "hand-holding" because they want everyone to go through the same repetitive process they did when they know they didn't have any fun doing what they want everyone else doing.

And you're bringing up the low populations like it's a bad thing. You do realize that some people don't exactly mind the low to medium populated servers and see those as being a plus rather than a minus, right? Some, like me, actively searched for servers that didn't have too many people in them. Why, you might ask? Because then you don't have the influx of nobodies that go in and out of the server. You see someone, and chances are that you will never see them again in a highly populated server (at least not very often). On a server with a lower population, you tend to see people more often that you know and can make a judgment about fairly quickly. I've also seen that, on at least my server, Alleria, the community is more tightly knit. The Horde side seems to not be as willing to be complete and utter jackasses, and will actually USE the trade channel for...ACTUAL TRADE! Sure, there'll be some chatter in there, but not the immature BS that I keep hearing about (and saw out of the more populated Alliance side of that server). Thing is, though, some people prefer the more peaceful nature that the lower populated servers can provide. I'm not saying it should be TOO low, but medium populations seem to be perfect for a lot of players.

Neither is pissing off your long term customers either but they are fairly happy to do that.

And...how would they be doing that by adding anything that actually ENCOURAGES people to be more sociable?

I'm fairly confident I said "I realise some peeps wouldn't be happy with that" - but what a short queue time DOES indicate is that it's a busy realm. If you're playing BF3 do you jump on a server with 3-4 peeps playing? Or with 30, 40, 60 peeps? I know what I do, I know what everyone I know does.

Try MOST peeps. Most thought those were a pain in the ass and were VERY frustrated with them. Who wants to wait that long every single time they want to play a game? I'm sure you do, but I doubt you really mean what you say.

And as for BF3, your comparison holds no water because there are several factors that you don't mention that go into what I would want out of a particular server. Perhaps I want a private server with just a few of my friends that want to play the game without the random immature 10 year old jackass going in there and be a clowning troll. Perhaps I want to password protect things to just let who I want to play in there play. People make those kinds of rooms/servers with Team Fortress 2, and it works to perfection. I'm not saying I would want anything like that in WoW, but I'm just saying that you're BF3 thing is severely flawed.

We ran 40 man raids on computers with half the GPU power you can find in low end systems now and didn't suffer major issues. Most issues peeps have with "framerates" are imho and ime due to them running too high settings - SSAO isn't for everyone nice as it makes things look. WoW is actually very well optimised from a standpoint of responsiveness under stress. Having framerate issues? Drop your settings. Still having issues? Close down your other apps. And if you're really still having problems - probably time for a new pc since that GeForce 2 is pushing it now :P

40 man raids. The one thing that is the bane of many yet people just blindly want it back despite how many problems it gave people.

As for your claim about high end systems, I have a ATI RadeonHD 6870 ($200), with an AMD Phenom 2 X4 and at least 4GB of memory (I have to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 7, though, when I ever get around to it...have the 32-bit one installed right now). In other words, my system isn't too bad. My only issue is that I need a new hard drive for it soon. My system can run WoW on Ultra settings with very little, if any, issue. Despite all of the above, I sometimes have frame rate and lag issues when I go into a zone which is highly populated such as Orgimmar. It's not too big of an issue to be a hindrance, but enough to where you can notice the drop (from the normal 60FPS that I can get to 30FPS. Before add-ons which I know will drag down performance somewhat, FPS was up into the 100s after 5.0.4). So yeah, you can't just say "lower settings" because it's not all about that.

This is lol - do you even know what they are? They allow you to play the game while waiting for your home world to become available. You can quest, you can gather, view guild chat, whisper friends, craft, buy stuff, blah blah blah - the only thing you cannot do is view certain realm specific data such as current state of WvW. It's a superb solution that works well.

I think me saying "I'm in no rush to play GW2" would indicate that I'm not very knowledgeable about the term and what it meant. Still, though, that seems like it's something that could end in disaster if done wrong. And you saying that it's a good solution is only your opinion. In time, we'll know if it does work. Plus, them shutting down servers to push their overflows more seems to me that they are either underestimating the amount of people that'll come to play their game, or they overestimated it. Regardless of the technology and how they try to explain what it actually is, people are going to think of that as a bad omen for any MMO.

Perhaps another reason why Blizzard doesn't "merge" servers. With as many people willing to troll these forums shouting their FUD about WoW's declining subs, imagine how the internet would blow up if Blizzard announced anything that even REMOTELY suggested that they were even considering it.

---------- Post added 2012-09-02 at 03:38 PM ----------

Why do people make excuses like this? For a game that cost as much as it does to play I set the expected standard a little higher.

That still doesn't mean that they can just throw something together and call it improved. You want good character models? Okay, well, give them the opportunity to work on something good that everyone is going to like instead of rushing them to come up with something extremely shitty because you have to have it RIGHT NOW!

And I love how people just blindly say things like that when they really have no idea what they're talking about.

[Fermion]

And you're counterargument brings up the antisocialness of the community. We want things to change, yet we're expecting Blizz to put a gun to our heads telling us to help others before we'll do that. Blizz can only do so much on their end to get us to go out there, explore the world, and get us to accept that others play the game and that we can help them out to become more sociable and thus increase our friend pool.

Unicorns again! This is the real world darkpower - these very forums expose the kind of social interactions that now exist within wow. Where peeps are quite happy to scream and yell at others in LFR for being "noobs" while they themselves run around in ungemmed, unenchanted gear doing 5K dps. I'm afraid I play in teh real world and as such I'd like things to improve for the majority now, rather than be hopeful the minority may win out in the end. And for the record Blizz have actually done the complete opposite to building communities - they've gone out of their way to create tools which actually make social interaction a pita. So please, stop harping on about how things may be, if people start being nice to each other, and work within the confines of how things are.

You counter my point by...saying the exact same thing I was answering with the point you tried to counter with. You get new and more people to play the game, and before long, you get the whole "low populated server" thing not being as much of a problem.

sigh - unicorns, pretty rainbows and bright flowers everywhere. Real world please, real world.

And you're bringing up the low populations like it's a bad thing. You do realize that some people don't exactly mind the low to medium populated servers and see those as being a plus rather than a minus, right?

This is your counter ... really? You're serious?

Try MOST peeps. Most thought those were a pain in the ass and were VERY frustrated with them. Who wants to wait that long every single time they want to play a game? I'm sure you do, but I doubt you really mean what you say.

I suspect you'll find many many people will accept a small queue if it means busier cities, easier pugs, better trading, lowering AH prices. Before you try and take this out of context - I mean _small_ queue, we're talking 10-15 mins tops here.

And as for BF3, your comparison holds no water because there are several factors that you don't mention that go into what I would want out of a particular server.

As a generalisation - what I said holds plenty of water. We're not talking about people who want very specific things, such as your "I like low population realms" argument above. We're talking about the majority.

40 man raids. The one thing that is the bane of many yet people just blindly want it back despite how many problems it gave people.

What has this got to do with the comments about fps? Nothing, nada, zip, zil

As for your claim about high end systems, I have a ATI RadeonHD 6870 ($200), with an AMD Phenom 2 X4 and at least 4GB of memory (I have to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 7, though, when I ever get around to it...have the 32-bit one installed right now). In other words, my system isn't too bad. My only issue is that I need a new hard ... snip.

So ... turn down the settings? I can't say I have the issues you have and overall my system is similar to yours in terms of GPU and processing power.

I think me saying "I'm in no rush to play GW2" would indicate that I'm not very knowledgeable about the term and what it meant. Still, though, that seems like it's something that could end in disaster if done wrong.

Again utter utter utter tripe! Everything can turn into disaster in the wrong hands - look at WoW since certain peeps got their hands on it :P But seriously - you're trying to disagree here I think just to be a pain. There are no downsides to this.

And you saying that it's a good solution is only your opinion.

Geez - so replacing "You are number 200 in the queue - waiting time currently 25 minutes" - vs. login, play, do stuff, chat, quest, do instances ... it's only my "opinion" that this is better? It's my opinion planes can fly dolphins can't ...

Plus, them shutting down servers to push their overflows more seems to me that they are either underestimating the amount of people that'll come to play their game, or they overestimated it.

What? What are you talking about? Shutting down what servers? Read what I wrote, not what you thought I wrote. I said if WoW were to consolidate their current realms the hardware that is no longer used could be repurposed as overflow capacity. WoW, not GW2. GW2 are not shutting down realms, they are currently opening up and - shock - managing numbers on their realms. I'd hope that if playing numbers decrease they won't be arses like Blizzard and actually shift peeps around to keep up server populations.

Perhaps another reason why Blizzard doesn't "merge" servers. With as many people willing to troll these forums shouting their FUD about WoW's declining subs, imagine how the internet would blow up if Blizzard announced anything that even REMOTELY suggested that they were even considering it

Now I get it - you're one of these peeps who won't even believe Blizzard's own subscription data. Let alone the actual reports from peeps saying how their realms have emptied out over the past couple of years. Riiiiiiiight. I think I'm done replying to you then, no point in debating with someone who believes that kind of nonsense.

That still doesn't mean that they can just throw something together and call it improved. You want good character models? Okay, well, give them the opportunity to work on something good that everyone is going to like instead of rushing them to come up with something extremely shitty because you have to have it RIGHT NOW!

Oh stop being a Blizzard apologist - no one is saying "throw something together". What was being pointed out (quite rightly!) was that Blizzards income from this game is significant. Constantly falling back on the "it takes time" argument gets old, it was old three years ago, it's ancient now.

And I love how people just blindly say things like that when they really have no idea what they're talking about.

Says the person talking about GW2 while admitting they know little about it :P "Hi Pot, this is Kettle calling" ...

[Taerra]

Grinding faction reputation to access the Valor Points gear is not mandatory, as you can find equivalents through raiding, PvP, or crafting.

I call bullshit on this one, How the hell is it any different from Grinding Rep at the start of Cata? Any guild that cares about killing bosses in a timely fashion will expect the raiders to grind the rep for the factions that give upgrades for them, all this is doing is adding a different currency to the same problem and not fixing it in any way shape or form.

You could get upgrades from Raiding, PvP and crafting at the start of cata but for thousands of guilds it was a mandatory grind regardless.

[Felaful]

Why do people make excuses like this? For a game that cost as much as it does to play I set the expected standard a little higher.

You pay $60 for GW2. $60 and that's all you ever have to pay again. That's too expensive for any slight errors or mistakes that ANet is currently fixing as we speak? The games release was phenomenal!

I just love the contradictory arguments here because the same people that "won't pay $60 for guild wars because of standards, blah blah blah," are the same exact people that pay $40 plus $15 a month for WoW where the standard have been severely lacking for the past year and a half at least!

On top of the, you also paid for all of the previous expansions on top of this because you're required to. New players that just wanna get started in WoW, and be able to reach Mac level and do anything, have to pay out the ass just for the games, and THEN, they pay the $15 a month. For standards like Blizzard has been offering in their games, I wouldn't even BEGIN to compare it with the one-time cost of GW2.

Seriously, do people even think?!