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

[Shanni]

Originally Posted by Dafydd

Here you go, still slowly climbing.

Interesting!

I'm really curious to see how this graph will look next October. My guess is (it's really just a subjective guess) that the number will fall due to players who have become tired of WoW flocking in Aion. Another interesting thing to see will be how long Aion will manage to keep these players and how many of them will go back to WoW.

[Dafydd]

Originally Posted by Shanni

Interesting!

I'm really curious to see how this graph will look next October. My guess is (it's really just a subjective guess) that the number will fall due to players who have become tired of WoW flocking in Aion. Another interesting thing to see will be how long Aion will manage to keep these players and how many of them will go back to WoW.

Personally I think it's about peaked, it'll stay flat for the next year or so then after 6 months of the Cataclysm expansion start to tail off a bit. That should take us to about Blizzcon 2010 where I expect Blizzard to formally announce details of their new MMORPG and beta dates at which point it's brown trousers time for the whole industry.

I don't think Aion will even make a blip, the Aion target players are realistically those who've played WoW and already quit.

I want Aion to succeed, I want WoW and Blizzard's new MMORPG to succeed, I wish AoC, Vanguard, and WAR had succeeded. We need competition, we need people to come up with new ideas that improve the genre as a whole. I'm not a WoW fanboy, I'm an MMORPG fanboy

[Xeniol]

I think the only way for WoW to gain a large amount of new subscribers is to start appealing to different demographics. Who wouldn't want a 70 year old to play it? Even with the sharp jump of subscribers in the first 2 months of the release of Wotlk( .5 million new), it isn't showing the promising increase as it has done before.

[Eulolia]

Originally Posted by Dafydd

Here you go, still slowly climbing.

It's impressive but doesn't take into account that the game has been released in Russia and Latin America, and for the last couple of years they have only released subscriber numbers at christmas or around the release of a big patch/expansion when obviously subscriber numbers spike.

EU/US subs have been pretty much the same since 2006, that's why they haven't posted them since. (Still retaining 4-5 million subs in this region is a good achievement and the game is still pretty healthy)

[Dafydd]

Originally Posted by Xeniol

I think the only way for WoW to gain a large amount of new subscribers is to start appealing to different demographics. Who wouldn't want a 70 year old to play it? Even with the sharp jump of subscribers in the first 2 months of the release of Wotlk( .5 million new), it isn't showing the promising increase as it has done before.

I don't think there's any way for WoW to gain a big subscriber bump, they already have the broadest appeal of all current MMORPGs. The sharp jump in WoTLK is ex-players returning for the continuation of the Frozen Throne storyline they know so well. WoW is not dying, but it has pretty much peaked. There's nowhere to go but down from here but that's a loooooooong road.

[Shanni]

Originally Posted by Eulolia

That graph made me smile because the 2009 development precisely mirrors my experience in the game. We (as a guild) saw a lot of people leaving the game during the grind that was Naxx and then some of them returned when Ulduar launched. However, many of these people who returned still didn't think Ulduar changed much and left again - hence the numbers eventually even out to the situation before 3.1 patch.

[Ulquiorra]

Originally Posted by Livvy

they have a very large group of developers - and hired new folks too - so taking a few off WoW to develop the new MMO isn't impacting their staff in the slightest .

PVP = FAIL.... When the new devolpers started to balance pvp towards their immage all the pvp legends complained and some quitted because the skill was getting washed off and mindless button smashing was introduced.

PVE = FAIL.... When the new devolpers started to change PvE it became a nobrainer challenge.

GEAR = FAIL.... Gear looks are complete fail, just compare the vanilla gear and tbc gear to this wotlk **** and you know enough.

Originally Posted by Livvy

It's comments like this that really tick me off. Why do you all want so desperately for a game to become "obsolete " . Don't the folks that are subscribed to that game have every right to enjoy themselves ? I was subscribed to Tabula Rasa and can tell you one thing : it wasn't fun when that game became "obsolete " ( still isn't for most TR fans ) .

I play WoW, 2k+ in 2v2 and 3v3 and doing raids everynow and then. I am sry just looking at vids about Aion and comparing them to WoW i am certain that Aion will crush a big part of WoW.

[Dafydd]

Originally Posted by Ulquiorra

I play WoW, 2k+ in 2v2 and 3v3 and doing raids everynow and then. I am sry just looking at vids about Aion and comparing them to WoW i am certain that Aion will crush a big part of WoW.

Please, listen to yourself. A primarily PvP game is going to crush a primarily PvE game? Maybe you think the next Honda bike will crush the BWM 5 series? Different game, different demographic. Aion is not going after the same players WoW is, Aion will not even dent WoW's popularity.

[Ulquiorra]

Originally Posted by Dafydd

Please, listen to yourself. A primarily PvP game is going to crush a primarily PvE game? Maybe you think the next Honda bike will crush the BWM 5 series? Different game, different demographic. Aion is not going after the same players WoW is, Aion will not even dent WoW's popularity.

No you got me wrong, we the PvP players of WoW have our own community on other forums. We love pvp but WoW forces you to do pve aswell as pvp and the pvp in WoW is so dead... there is no world pvp, no faction vs faction combat. I love arena but also like other forms of PvP and WoW simply doesn't provide that and they keep messing up with arena.

Aion won't take away the pve'ers of WoW but sure as hell will take away the serious pvpers. I am sry for not being that clear in my previous post, hope this clears some stuff up

[Dafydd]

Originally Posted by Ulquiorra

Aion won't take away the pve'ers of WoW but sure as hell will take away the serious pvpers. I am sry for not being that clear in my previous post, hope this clears some stuff up

I think we can agree on that, the more serious PvP types have been looking for "something else" for years. AoC wasn't it, WAR wasn't it, I can't say whether Aion is it or not as I only dabble in PvP.

That said, while I generally prefer consensual PvP the PvPvE instanced in the 1.5 patch did pique my interest.

[Kyuxiora]

Someone needs to make this,with Blizzard and NCsoft

YouTube - Hitler gets banned from World of Warcraft

YouTube - Hitler gets banned from World of Warcraft

[QQ More]

Lulz. I hope WoW dies. But blizzard is awesome.

[Chob]

Originally Posted by Dafydd

Here you go, still slowly climbing.

Sorry but that's ********

Look at the blizzard press releases here

Blizzard Entertainment - Press Releases

They didn't release any press release about 11.6m in June

[Eulolia]

Originally Posted by Chob

Sorry but that's ********

Look at the blizzard press releases here

Blizzard Entertainment - Press Releases

They didn't release any press release about 11.6m in June

They got a guiness world record in June for reaching 11.6m, but there was no detail on when that 11.6m was, I guess it was during Christmas not long after they put out the 11.5m press release.

[psychodude]

Originally Posted by Chob

Sorry but that's ********

Look at the blizzard press releases here

Blizzard Entertainment - Press Releases

They didn't release any press release about 11.6m in June

The 11.6 million is the figure with which it went into guiness during E3 expo 09, which was in June. So I bet the figure was taken from there .