Aion : a possible competitive threat to WoW's future according to ActivisionBlizzard

[Skyrider]

Originally Posted by Lilja

Exactly my thoughts on the subject. There is just too much STUFF you can do and obtain in WoW now, but no real reason to do anything. No real challenge.

To be honest, I disagree. Having played WoW a long time, I can say there's still challenge to the game, but it's based off hard mode encounters and it seems that most people are happy to simply ignore them or judge the difficulty of content based off of what other people have done.

The game still takes the same grind and same time to run the same place again and again for gear, PvP still is a waste of time, when you're not raiding there's still nothing to do aside from hobby achievements like Loremaster.

There's so many things that lead to the playerbase in WoW becoming bored, to be honest lack of challenge really isn't one of them. Moreover I'd say there's more of a lack of reason to actually FACE those challenges.

[Lilja]

Originally Posted by Skyrider

To be honest, I disagree. Having played WoW a long time, I can say there's still challenge to the game, but it's based off hard mode encounters and it seems that most people are happy to simply ignore them or judge the difficulty of content based off of what other people have done.

The game still takes the same grind and same time to run the same place again and again for gear, PvP still is a waste of time, when you're not raiding there's still nothing to do aside from hobby achievements like Loremaster.

There's so many things that lead to the playerbase in WoW becoming bored, to be honest lack of challenge really isn't one of them. Moreover I'd say there's more of a lack of reason to actually FACE those challenges.

I felt the 40-man raids were far more challenging than the current 25-mans - even on a hard mode. But that is just me. I stopped raiding after my guild had cleared Ulduar half way in two weeks. Just more of the same of the same of the same.

But I do agree with you in that there is a lack of REASON to face any challenge - even if it is just the sheer mundane daily grind. I remember back in time when epics stood out. Or titles meant something. Or the mount you got from the baron was actually rare...

Just goes to show how less is more.

[Grazzit]

good news for NcSoft regardless of the love for WoW...
(never liked it myself)

[solitear]

This great news kinda throws more publicity for aion atm >.<

[Skyrider]

Originally Posted by Lilja

I felt the 40-man raids were far more challenging than the current 25-mans - even on a hard mode. But that is just me. I stopped raiding after my guild had cleared Ulduar half way in two weeks. Just more of the same of the same of the same.

Yes, but it's important to remember WHY those 40 man raids were difficult. The main challenge at that point was getting 40 people to actually hit the same target without stopping to pick their noses. It required more people, thus you had to take people you normally wouldn't play with because you were forced to. The encounters themselves were not really all that difficult in comparison to any of the current raiding fights, you just had to struggle to get people to pay attention.

As there are less people that need to focus, the difficulty appears to be lessened.

It should also be noted that back in the days of 40 man raids we didn't have a lot of the raiding addons that are essentially required for raiding, nor did we have the datamining sites/services like WWS that allow people to easily analyze problems with their attempts for quicker corrections.

I'm fairly bored with WoW as it is for my own reasons, but I stress that we should show it enough respect as a piece of game design to properly and fairly discuss its triumphs and failings.

[Arielo]

Originally Posted by Chob

I'd say they are not very confident in WoW anymore



Gamasutra - News - Analyst: Hardware Pricing, Possible Starcraft II Delay Could 'Compromise' Activision's Holiday

To be honest I have a love/hate with this news, mainly because the WoW community is just down right rotten. Out of all the MMOs I have played, WoW has got to be the worst in this perspective. I sure hope the bad seeds of the community do not migrate to Aion. You can't read one post on the WoW boards or sit 5 minutes in-game without seeing some sarcastic hateful remark like you would find on youtube comments.

WoWs community was its downfall, and ultimately the community ruined the game for me. I found most western based games to be this way =/ has to be the culture.

[Skyrider]

Originally Posted by Arielo

I sure hope the bad seeds of the community do not migrate to Aion.

The only thing that's going to stop this is if we don't stand for it in-game and shape Aion's community into something better.

WoW is the sum of its memes.

[Lilja]

Originally Posted by Skyrider

I'm fairly bored with WoW as it is for my own reasons, but I stress that we should show it enough respect as a piece of game design to properly and fairly discuss its triumphs and failings.

I fail to see how my reasons for being bored with WoW being different than yours makes them "disrespectful" per se. Or do you have some sort of supreme authority in this matter ?

[Caedes]

I stopped reading after analyst, useless is useless.

[Lawlyss]

I play Aion to play Aion. Not to wonder if 13 yr old Mikey Pimple Face, from WoW, is going to join me here. Meh, business and marketing don't interest me. If they did, I'd prolly be in college, not playing an mmo.

[Grimgrin]

I'm sorry but if FFXIV is as much fun as the first one but a better game i dont think anything will compete with that.
Anyone who played FFXI can not denie the fact it has been the best MMO out there for some time. The decline in it is apparently now the lack of interest in upgrading the old game in the persuit of making the new one better.

Grim

[Grimgrin]

If you read carefully its not 11.5 million players its 11.5 million subscriptions that includes every gold seller multi accounts w/e i'd say they probably have 3/5 of that in actually players.

Edit: I think i'm psychic now or something.....

Grim

[Shanni]

Originally Posted by Arielo

To be honest I have a love/hate with this news, mainly because the WoW community is just down right rotten. Out of all the MMOs I have played, WoW has got to be the worst in this perspective. I sure hope the bad seeds of the community do not migrate to Aion. You can't read one post on the WoW boards or sit 5 minutes in-game without seeing some sarcastic hateful remark like you would find on youtube comments.

WoWs community was its downfall, and ultimately the community ruined the game for me. I found most western based games to be this way =/ has to be the culture.

It wasn't always this way, however!

Back when I started playing WoW in 2006, I was new to the whole MMO thing, I didn't know anything about the game - nor about addons or internet databases. I reached lvl14 (or was it16?) and got stuck on my sea lion pendant quest - I was pretty desperate and for the love of god couldn't figure out what to do. But then I discovered the General chat! Not one, but several fellow druids offered to helped me out. They walked me through the whole quest chain (and it required quite a lot of traveling back then), gave me advice on professions, talents, armor, weapons... If it wasn't for this experience I'm pretty sure I would have left the game there and then and never looked back.

The best part of this story is that after a while our paths separated, they did their raids and I leveled at my own casual pace. And then - months later - when I hit level 60 I got whispers from all those guys congratulating me!

WoW community used to be one wonderful place to be...

[Lilja]

Originally Posted by Varu

I am wondering, if there are still '' more '' then 11.5 mil. Players in World of Warcraft. I think they are lying now about the numbers to get more NEW players.

I'm not sure, but I think the claim is that WoW has 11,5 mil accounts, not players. Some players have more than one active account.

Of course, I have no data to back up my purely subjective claim. Also, I mean no disrespect to the game by this opinion.

[Varu]

I am wondering, if there are still '' more '' then 11.5 mil. Players in World of Warcraft. I think they are lying now about the numbers to get more NEW players.