WoW Down to 7.6 Million Subscribers

Originally Posted by SodiumChloride

Safe to say those "Internet Game Room" people don't pay a subscription nor use prepaid cards - else they would be included in those categories.

Subtract those players, what are the numbers then ... ?

That's not relevant at all. If people like a game, they like it, regardless of how much they pay for it. It's like saying people that pay less for a concert ticket aren't important. It's not about total revenue, it's about how many people play to determine how popular a game is.
If Wow had 7.6 million people paying only 1 dollar to play would it be less popular?

Originally Posted by Raysz

That's not relevant at all. If people like a game, they like it, regardless of how much they pay for it. It's like saying people that pay less for a concert ticket aren't important. It's not about total revenue, it's about how many people play to determine how popular a game is.
If Wow had 7.6 million people paying only 1 dollar to play would it be less popular?

Probably. Because if 7.6m people are willing to pay 15, surely more than 7.6m are willing to pay 1 dollar.

Originally Posted by PenguinChan

Personal opinion, but a lot of those features in newer MMORPG's are still unprofessional and slapped in due to the "freshness". HDR is also misused so much even by main-stream titles, almost always over blown. I think it could be added to WoW, although most newer technology doesn't fit the art style.

Have you played any recently released games (not by Blizzard)?

HDR has been around for nearly 10 years, the exaggerated look for early games are long gone.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Raysz

That's not relevant at all. If people like a game, they like it, regardless of how much they pay for it. It's like saying people that pay less for a concert ticket aren't important. It's not about total revenue, it's about how many people play to determine how popular a game is.
If Wow had 7.6 million people paying only 1 dollar to play would it be less popular?

I said nothing about how much they pay. Just their "commitment" to paying in a consistent basis.

"Internet Game Rooms" probably charge by the hour - hence Blizzard has to use the "log in during the last 30 day" metric. In theory you could pop in for 30 mins of BG then never touch the game for the rest of the month and still be considered a subscriber - assuming the previously mentioned assumptions about how game rooms operate holds.

Internet game room user IMHO does have quite the same "weight" as a monthly subscriber. But that's just the way I personally see it.

I was referring more to the technical aspects than the artistic aspects. WoW can look "beautiful" in the sense that it has cartoony vibrant colors and enough lighting capability to set up at least some kind of atmosphere. Even Trine looks beautiful in that sense, and that game is a 2.5D side-scroller:



But WoW engine hit it's limits years ago in terms of technical aspects and fine detail....and ultimately it's the little things that make the world. The big ones for me are armor designs and view distance. Every now and then I check the MMO-C frontpage to check on what the new tiers look like, and at this point EVERYTHING looks utterly the same to me like it's been recycled a million times. Putting fine detail onto equipment seems to be impossible with the current engine. Also it's about time they increased the view distance to at least double what it currently is, to make the world feel truly huge and epic.

Originally Posted by scorpion9977

It's not just a flick of a switch to turn WoW into a high polygon world, besides it doesn't take high definition graphics to make a great game.

But an already-great game can always benefit from more detailed visuals. PC gaming is on a whole new level compared to the era when WoW took off but the engine isn't making the most of the hardware available.

Originally Posted by SodiumChloride

Have you played any recently released games (not by Blizzard)?

HDR has been around for nearly 10 years, the exaggerated look for early games are long gone.

Yes of course, why wouldn't I be playing non-Blizzard games? I still stand by that a lot of games don't use it correctly. If my eyes are straining because of all the improper over-use of HDR (This always happens), I turn it off. Valve somehow still is able to make me not hate their subtle use of it, but a lot of games aren't subtle at all. All personal, I notice it while others may not even give two shits.

Originally Posted by PenguinChan

Yes of course, why wouldn't I be playing non-Blizzard games? I still stand by that a lot of games don't use it correctly. If my eyes are straining because of all the improper over-use of HDR (This always happens), I turn it off. Valve somehow still is able to make me not hate their subtle use of it, but a lot of games aren't subtle at all. All personal, I notice it while others may not even give two shits.

I think the problem might be your monitor rather than the game ... >.>

Using IPS LCDs? That's what I play on, pretty darn good, and it's not even a super expensive one - it's from DELL. /shrug For me over saturated colours cause eye strain, the reason I hate OLED screens. Accuracy + decent calibration >>>> "pop"

Also name a good with bad HDR.

Originally Posted by SodiumChloride

Also name a good with bad HDR.

A good game with bad HDR I assume? Well, if you want my personal view on it all.

Most, again. Trion Worlds Games, Guild Wars 2, any Unreal Engine 3 / UDK and soon to be Unreal 4, most source converted games (Even the new Titanfall), Elder Scrolls Online (It seems to be HDR, not typical 2004 BLOOOOM), Shadow Warrior (New one), Serious Sam 3, and many more I can't name off the top of my head right now. All of these were pretty good to me (Disregarding Company / Engine call outs). These all are notorious for bad HDR or just poor mimicing of the effects to me.

Originally Posted by Phurox

I just resubbed my subscription today, no flying, my money.

my sub ends today and wildstar open beta tomorrow, no flying no money

K bye. Wont miss.

Originally Posted by PenguinChan

A good game with bad HDR I assume? Well, if you want my personal view on it all.

Most, again. Trion Worlds Games, Guild Wars 2, any Unreal Engine 3 / UDK and soon to be Unreal 4, most source converted games (Even the new Titanfall), Elder Scrolls Online (It seems to be HDR, not typical 2004 BLOOOOM), Shadow Warrior (New one), Serious Sam 3, and many more I can't name off the top of my head right now. All of these were pretty good to me (Disregarding Company / Engine call outs). These all are notorious for bad HDR or just poor mimicing of the effects to me.

HA! I knew Unreal would crop up. Ya, that engine does over do quite a bit.

Originally Posted by Chickat

WoWs graphics are beautiful. A ton of people dont even care about graphics. If they did, LoL wouldn't be so popular.

This looks on par with something like swtor imo, and I actually think it looks better than the oil painted look of gw2.

LoL isn't an RPG though.

Morning


Around noon

Originally Posted by SodiumChloride

HA! I knew Unreal would crop up. Ya, that engine does over do quite a bit.

Even though I think FFXIV does HDR amazingly well, there are points in some areas where it wasn't tuned back and it fucks with me. I hate absolute bright whites (Besides the sun, obviously) and it crops up every now and again.

Originally Posted by PenguinChan

Even though I think FFXIV does HDR amazingly well, there are points in some areas where it wasn't tuned back and it fucks with me. I hate absolute bright whites (Besides the sun, obviously) and it crops up every now and again.

That happens I believe when there is high contrast between areas. The engine picks an exposure level somewhere in the middle - or something like that - so you lose detail in the very bright and very dark areas.

Unreal seem to be permanently "overexposed".

Originally Posted by Nnyco

its this time again

I preffer this one:

Originally Posted by wotscheints

And 7.6m subscribers is over 100M USD (I know not all subscribers pay $15, but EU players pay €12.99. That's $18). Per month.
That's 1.2B per year. Revenue from other in-game services not included.
1.2B is not "dead". There are "WoW-killers" out there that are not even close to 7.8M players and/or 1.2B annual revenue and will probably never be.

You think, that those 7.6m subscribers are all from US and EU?
Around 4m subscribers are still asians, who don't pay a monthly fee. Only the rest (3.6m) are from US and EU.

Originally Posted by Brewhan

my sub ends today and wildstar open beta tomorrow, no flying no money

Wildstar doesn't have flying, does it? I mean, those jumping puzzles for Explorers would be ruined by that.

When I finally decided to "de-commit" myself from WoW and go see what other games had to offer with an open mind, what amazed me was just how dated and sad WoW is now by comparison. So to those who say "Well I don't miss them". You shouldn't. A whole new world awaits them. They probably don't miss you either.

WoW is essentially like a cult now. You play WoW, you devote all of your gaming time to WoW with no idea what is going on in the outside world (because you are so caught up on the accumulative investment you've made in the game) and if you finally do break free the first thing that happens is your eyes hurt because it's so damn bright out there.

Like sure I stepped away to try Diablo 3 (since i got it "Free" on the annual pass) but then after I gave WoW a rest I logged onto steam to try out a bunch of different games, and my assessment; Blizzard has gone from serving gourmet meals to serving fast food (but the prices on the menu haven't changed).

So I feel sorry for anybody amongst those 7.6 million people who believe that they are getting their money's worth for WoW.

Originally Posted by Gheld

When I finally decided to "de-commit" myself from WoW and go see what other games had to offer with an open mind, what amazed me was just how dated and sad WoW is now by comparison.

When I've tried other MMOs, what struck me is how badly they play. The fluidity of movement, animation, speed of panning and rendering of scenery, and combat are all just terrible compared to WoW. I've been burned on this enough times to just not bother picking up new MMOs now. ESO and Wildstar, I'm not even bothering to try.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

When I've tried other MMOs, what struck me is how badly they play. The fluidity of movement, animation, speed of panning and rendering of scenery, and combat are all just terrible compared to WoW. I've been burned on this enough times to just not bother picking up new MMOs now. ESO and Wildstar, I'm not even bothering to try.

MMO's are just bad in general. A novelty for the young shut-in. Really, nobody cares about the social aspect of them any way. Anybody who claims they play a game, from within the locked doors of their own home, for the purpose of socializing is being intellectually dishonest. It's all about E-Peen show-off, and a lot of non MMO games have E-Peen show-off built into them now.

And I mean, if you're having a LAN party, and WoW is the game of the hour, that's one bad LAN party.

Yeah, WoW probably operates the smoothest of any MMO, but that's probably because it's a 2004 game engine(older, yet including development) being played on 2010+ computers over 2014 internet connections. So of course it is going to play smoother than games that are newer will. All Blizzard has done to the game play is some graphical tweaks like adding DX11 support (unless you have an ATI card) and up the poly count on models and increase the terrain texture resolution.

The game world is still an inorganic slop, models are still clipping balls, and any attempt to change any of that with their game engine has failed.

If you want to pay hundreds of dollars a year for that, go for it. But I can assure you you aren't getting your money's worth.

Originally Posted by SodiumChloride

LoL isn't an RPG though.

But the graphics are still terrible (compared to other games), but that doesn't seem to scare off people. In other words, graphics rarely makes the game, game play does, however.

Naturally, it's all opinions, but I'm fairly certain most people won't stick around for long, if the only thing a game has to offer are pretty objects. Age of Conan, as an example, had (at the time of release) OMG graphics (although you needed a rather powerful PC to run it with those graphics) but rather crappy game play - lots of things weren't done when it was released. It has since resorted to a F2P model, and still contains many glitches far worse than WoW.

For me, I like the graphics used in WoW, it's a special sort of graphics, that doesn't seem to try and mimic real life in the same way other MMO's do. And when they do have the audacity to up the graphics, tons of people complain they can't run the game quit as smoothly as they used to.

New pretty graphics will surely attract new players (or old), but once they find that that is the only thing that's new, they'll soon quit again.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

When I've tried other MMOs, what struck me is how badly they play. The fluidity of movement, animation, speed of panning and rendering of scenery, and combat are all just terrible compared to WoW. I've been burned on this enough times to just not bother picking up new MMOs now. ESO and Wildstar, I'm not even bothering to try.

I concur.

Originally Posted by SodiumChloride

HA! I knew Unreal would crop up. Ya, that engine does over do quite a bit.



LoL isn't an RPG though.

Morning


Around noon

It looks terrible to me. Washed out colors. Boring uninspired props. Ill take wow anyday thank you. I think I just prefer a more cartoon styled game. Its why I think something like borderlands 2 looks better then bf4.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by kazso

You think, that those 7.6m subscribers are all from US and EU?
Around 4m subscribers are still asians, who don't pay a monthly fee. Only the rest (3.6m) are from US and EU.

Willing to bet you are wrong. Theres a reason profits arent dropping. Its because most of the 4m that left were from asia. Betting on 5m west players at this point.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Gheld

When I finally decided to "de-commit" myself from WoW and go see what other games had to offer with an open mind, what amazed me was just how dated and sad WoW is now by comparison. So to those who say "Well I don't miss them". You shouldn't. A whole new world awaits them. They probably don't miss you either.

WoW is essentially like a cult now. You play WoW, you devote all of your gaming time to WoW with no idea what is going on in the outside world (because you are so caught up on the accumulative investment you've made in the game) and if you finally do break free the first thing that happens is your eyes hurt because it's so damn bright out there.

Like sure I stepped away to try Diablo 3 (since i got it "Free" on the annual pass) but then after I gave WoW a rest I logged onto steam to try out a bunch of different games, and my assessment; Blizzard has gone from serving gourmet meals to serving fast food (but the prices on the menu haven't changed).

So I feel sorry for anybody amongst those 7.6 million people who believe that they are getting their money's worth for WoW.

Funny, I feel the same way about all the other mmos. They feel cheap in comparison to wow. Yes ive tried nearly all of them. Nothing has the production value that wow does.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Gheld

MMO's are just bad in general. A novelty for the young shut-in. Really, nobody cares about the social aspect of them any way. Anybody who claims they play a game, from within the locked doors of their own home, for the purpose of socializing is being intellectually dishonest. It's all about E-Peen show-off, and a lot of non MMO games have E-Peen show-off built into them now.

And I mean, if you're having a LAN party, and WoW is the game of the hour, that's one bad LAN party.

Yeah, WoW probably operates the smoothest of any MMO, but that's probably because it's a 2004 game engine(older, yet including development) being played on 2010+ computers over 2014 internet connections. So of course it is going to play smoother than games that are newer will. All Blizzard has done to the game play is some graphical tweaks like adding DX11 support (unless you have an ATI card) and up the poly count on models and increase the terrain texture resolution.

The game world is still an inorganic slop, models are still clipping balls, and any attempt to change any of that with their game engine has failed.

If you want to pay hundreds of dollars a year for that, go for it. But I can assure you you aren't getting your money's worth.

Don't try to tell me what I think my money is worth. Like i said, Tried other mmos. Nothing compares to wow for me. I went in with an open mind. Hell, I'm sick of wow, but other mmos feel 10 times more boring and clunky.