World of Warcraft surpasses 11M subscribers

[Boubouille]

Update - A few additional blue posts have been added.

World of Warcraft surpasses 11 million subscribers worldwide

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that the subscribership for World of Warcraft®, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), now exceeds 11 million players worldwide. This milestone was reached as the beta test for Wrath of the Lich King®, World of Warcraft's second expansion, nears completion. Wrath of the Lich King will launch in several regions around the world starting on November 13.

"It's been very rewarding to see gamers around the world continue to show such strong support for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment®. “We remain fully committed to responding to that enthusiasm with a high-quality, constantly evolving game experience.

Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. It was the bestselling PC game of 2005 and 2006 worldwide, and finished behind only World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade®, the first expansion pack for the game, in 2007.* In addition to being the bestselling PC game of 2007 in both North America and Europe, The Burning Crusade holds the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours of availability and approximately 3.5 million in its first month.

World of Warcraft was recently launched in Russia and Latin America, and is currently available in eight languages. In addition to North America and Europe, the game is played in mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Chile, Argentina, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

To keep pace with the continued growth of World of Warcraft as well as development on other Blizzard Entertainment games, the company is currently hiring for numerous open positions. More information on available career opportunities at Blizzard Entertainment can be found at www.blizzard.com/jobs.

For further information on World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, please visit the official website at www.worldofwarcraft.com.

Blue posts

Tabard of the Achiever and "old" tabards
Yes you can delete them. While I do not recommend getting rid of the ones that are harder to pickup, you can even delete them before hitting the 25 tabard mark. I bought all of the easy to get tabards like Cenarion Expedition, Skyguard, Ogri'la, etc. and ended up at 24. So I sold these easy ones while I worked on the last one. Once I picked up the last one I got the achievement without re-purchasing the ones I sold.

Once again though, I recommend not getting rid of any of the difficult ones to get in case this doesn't work out as planned. But grats to all those who are real achievers! (Source)

Paladin (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Retribution nerfs
We could get a similar effect by changing Wisdom to base mana instead of total mana (because that is independent of the size of your mana pool with gear). As some players have pointed out, the risk would be that paladins feel that Wisdom is their only choice.

[...] Just because you CAN be at the top of the damage meters doesn’t mean you WILL be at the top of the damage meters. That is a huge difference. But all many players hear is “I should be within 5% of the top rogue and hunter.”

Overall, the design goal for Ret hasn’t changed. We want you to be brought for your dps if for example the raid already has all of your buffs. You were just too high before. Even less skilled Ret players were very high. Even ones with questionable gear.

[...] We tested quite extensively with the JotW change, down to changing the number by single percentage points until we found a number we liked.

As far as multiple nerfs, we did try a few small changes when we made Divine Storm physical. It didn’t help much and Rets were still steamrolling other players and mobs. We needed to be more severe with the next round of changes.

Remember why we made these changes: it was to lower your dps and mana regen, so yes, those two things should be lower. We raised Blood / Martyr to make sure you had an option to running out of mana (by e.g. spamming Consecration) by using these Seals and Judgements for your dps.

I know some of you are saying you are still running out of mana by using only the core abilities I mentioned. But not everyone is finding that, so we need to keep investigating.

Mana drains are still something we are looking at. We could also change those to a percent of base mana. But the effects seem to vary wildly with the hunter version being fairly powerful and the warlock version much less so. Yet we aren’t exactly trying to nerf hunters in PvP either so it’s a complex problem to solve.

Making sure you aren’t waiting too long for cooldowns is something else we’re looking at. For example, we could lower the cooldown and effect of Judgements just so you are hitting the button more often. (Source)

Priest (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Lack of proper role for Shadowpriests in raid in WotLK
VT does a lot of damage, but that's the juice we gave Shadow to be able to compete on the damage meters. We don't think it's a problem, at least for now. (Source)

Warlock (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Change to shards not before WotLK
I said down below somewhere that we have some ideas on shards. It's not going to be a fix you'll see before Lich King ships though. (Source)

WoW TCG - Drums of War now available
The new WoW TCG expansion "Drums of War" has been released in store yesterday, it's now a matter of hours before you start seeing the loot cards from this set in this game. As a reminder :

The Red Bearon
The Red Bearon is the latest in epic mounts, and one of the easiest ways in Azeroth to score a bear mount! “The Battle Bear” is the fourth exclusive mount from the World of Warcraft TCG, and continues the tradition of giving players access to unique and exciting mounts. Similar to previous Loot card mounts, The Red Bearon Loot card unlocks the ability for players to purchase either a normal or an epic version of this mind-blowing mount.

Owned!
This uncommon Loot card offers the newest in victory flaunting. Used in-game, this card gives you “The Flag of Ownership,” and will tell everyone that you just bested your opponent. In addition to a special emote, you will literally plant a flag in the corpse of your fallen enemy. As if that wasn’t enough, the flag flies a giant thumbs down, the ultimate in humiliation.

Slashdance
This super common Loot card gives players a stack of Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.S., complete with targeting circle! Aim carefully at a glum group of characters and then throw your grenade. Everyone in the target circle will receive a one minute “buff” that causes them to dance ‘til there’s a smile on their face! Not only will all the targeted characters bust a move, they will also get to enjoy some streamers and confetti, making it a real party!

[Deleted]

Most likely because a portion of the community bought a 2nd account to get the Zhevra mount :P

[Ektoplasme]

Hoho, I didn't see this happen. I mean, not BEFORE WotLK.

Now I'm pretty sure they'll reach 12M or even 13M easily in the months after the launch of the expansion.

So, where are all those people who said : "WAR will be the WoW killer ?" :-)

The only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard's next MMO (Diablo III may take some people away from WoW too)

[Amgyn]

11,000,000 x $15 a month = $165,000,000 per month

not including initial game purchase, and the two expansions.

[Maegnar]

LOL ;D With all the whiners going around and yelling that they quit on every corner - these are "in your face" news for sure )

[Ness]

So now I would like to ask all those people who said WoW will die and WAR will be the next big thing, what now?
Now I would like to say to all those people who are quitting because their class isn't OP, and trying to see if blizz will call them back because they are hurting financially, lol at you.

[insidelane]

WoW will never die, ever.

[Ektoplasme]

WoW Having 11M Subscribers says nothing about WAR.

Well WAR has 750.000 accounts (according to official numbers). It cannot be verified and it would be in their best interest to overestimate it so we cannot be sure.

But even if this number is true then it is rather low. It's enough to make it a successful MMO but certainly not enough to be a WoW-killer. And they are talking about "consolidating" realms... so to be clear it means some people are leaving WAR and some servers are empty enough to justify their merging with a bigger one.

[dameroth]

Well WAR has 750.000 accounts (according to official numbers). It cannot be verified and it would be in their best interest to overestimate it so we cannot be sure.

But even if this number is true then it is rather low. It's enough to make it a successful MMO but certainly not enough to be a WoW-killer. And they are talking about "consolidating" realms... so to be clear it means some people are leaving WAR and some servers are empty enough to justify their merging with a bigger one.

i played WAR for the first month... got bord, canceled my subscription. it got old way too fast. maybe once they fix it up it will be better but all it is for now is a grindfest / pvp game just like guildwars, fury & a few others.

[Snikeren]

A lot of people have several accounts though... Not only to get the Zhevra mount, but there's a lot of people multiboxing and stuff...

11 million subscribers is correct, but how many players..? :P

[dameroth]

Do you have any idea how much cash they spend on bills etc? No? Well I suggest you think twice before talking. I doubt Blizzard have $165,000,000 to fool around with every month.

go troll somewhere else i know how much it takes to run a mmo & keep it running. so keep tro-tro-trolling along

[Ektoplasme]

Also the problem with WAR at the moment is that the "balance" is a joke. Some classes are completely OP and others suck.

And you know what was the answer of the lead designer ?

"We won't nerf anybody, we'll just buff everyone instead !"

Well, it sure is an answer that will please the 13 year old children but it is not a good way to balance a game... Even if we all hate it when Blizz nerf our class, we all have to admit they are doing a good job. I mean, it's the only MMO I know where the class representation is so balanced. I mean every class is close to 11% representation (hunter at 15% and shaman at 8% but they are exceptions and not really too far from the average).

[Phantx]

So much money and they can't fix the PCT/PCNC issue.. QQ

[Gizmo]

'suscribers'

SUBscribers. :P

[Cronosone]

11,000,000 x $15 a month = $165,000,000 per month

not including initial game purchase, and the two expansions.

Not every country pays a monthly subscription fee, blizz gets their cash in different ways in those cases though no idea of the actual value.

[bustaone]

Food for thought:
ATVI is trading currently at $10.80 a share, a 24 month low.

[SimTex]

WoW will never die, ever.

Get a grib, everyone will die eventually. UO died so will wow, it's already showing signs of weakness, but 3 more years is very possible with the current framework and progression plan.

Food for thought:
ATVI is trading currently at $10.80 a share, a 24 month low.

Heard about the current financial crisis? Anyway might be a good pick if you are willing to buy atm.

[bbr]

That, is a fucking lot of players.

Are those all "active" players? or did they include trial and demos in that?



UO never came above 250K subscribers. (300K at most)
And it's still alive, though bleeding a slow agonizing death at the hands of EA.
70K and going down. Most of those are people with multiple accounts.

[Lytzen]

Blizzard should learn to handle their server stability / lag , before they brag about WoW!

[koruption]

Their numbers are misleading - it doesn't take into account gold farmers and spammer accounts.
Granted, remove those it is still about 8-9 million, still a respectable number.

WAR isn't bad, it's really decent if you have a good guild and get in on alot of RvR. Way less of a grindfest when you actually scenario take keeps most of the time.