Good taste. We've heard of it
|
|
|
Lich King looms into view
WORLD OF WARCRAFT players have torn themselves away from their infatuation to limp, blinking and mewling, out into the harsh light of the real world. Yet their quest was clear, they were going to grind their way down to the shops to pick up a new expansion pack to feed their insatiable craving for adventure in the lands of Azeroth and beyond.
At the end of last month Blizzard Entertainment announced that there would be midnight openings of stores in order for Warcrack addicts to queue up and get the Wrath of the Lich King as soon as possible.
An Oxford Street shop in London saw a queue of more than 2,000 fans, many of them dressed in cardboard armour and brandishing magical staffs fashioned from their mum's broom handles, waiting outside to collect a copy of the add-on.
Many queued up from around 11.30pm but some extreme fans were waiting from as early as 6am in order to be the first to get the game.
The expansion will give players the chance to take a whole new character, the Death Knight, up to the new level cap at 80, as well as exploring a special continent for higher level players. The usual host of new enemies, equipment and spells will also be available.
The WoW forums were a buzz of excitement last night as fans returned online to share their queuing experiences while the new data installed.
One player named Dugath said that the shop's credit card machine had broken, at which point someone in line shouted dramatically, “They were not prepared!”
Once players began to load the game the forums went quiet as they were sucked into the new experiences, all one player named Metalicz could say was, “Amazing”.
"The Wrath of the Lich King was certainly worth the wait, I don't think I'll be moving from this spot for a while," said another named Guv.
Since its launch in 2004 Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft has stepped up as one of the most popular online games, now with more than 11 million players.
Blizzard's chief executive Mike Morhaime said, "We've been looking forward to this launch event all year. This is one of the few opportunities we get to meet with players in person."
Now that Lich King is out, Blizzard aims to update the graphics of the game making everything look more realistic.
The new expansion will set you back £25, but you will have to already have the core game, the previous Burning Crusade expansion, and stump up a monthly subscription of £8.99. µ
Share this:
Share
Yes, WoW is the largest MMORPG out there, but I just upgraded Lord of the Rings Online to The Mines of Moria. At least the storyline's a bit better than WoW as it ties in to one of the best literary fantasy universes.

Though my wife and I started on $15 a month, we went lifetime for $199 each. All we have to do is buy the expansions. My minstrel, her champion and many crafting alts will be quite busy for years to come.
You write: "First, theres a signifigant amount of that monthly fee that goes back into the company via system maintenance, upgrades, programming, etc.". You don't read much news do you?

According to Blizzards own financials (September call, 2008): 

Total cost of Warcraft since 2004: $200 million. Total. In 4 years. Everything included: servers, programming, buildings, maintainance, everything.

Total take for Warcraft: estimates of $75 to $150 million. PER MONTH. That's a low-end estimate of $3.6 BILLION in those same four years.

That's hardly a "significant amount going to maintenance", as you claim.

Me? I don't play, but damn, what a sweet business model.

The subscription price is competitive with almost every pay MMO on the market. Two things to realize. First, theres a signifigant amount of that monthly fee that goes back into the company via system maintenance, upgrades, programming, etc.. Second. Not every one of the 10 million subscribers pay 15$. Some like in korea pay signifigantly less as they play in cyber cafe's by the hour, so while they are definately comftorably making money, lowering the fee would invariably mean lowering the quality.
Just wont happen since the online support from gamemasers and such.The price is actually low.The thing with LH is the absolut nerfing and wasting of all work done on lowlevel areas.For the only reason to get 1 people to 60 fast thus forcing them to buy 2. BL then nerf all monsters and nerf the xp required to level so the can get fast to 70 while they have a intresst and then 3. to buy Lich King .Congratulasion Blizzard ,this is good for you but not for a new player -He dont play the actual game that was intented the Game now is about LV 70-80 eg all other content wasted away to Force player to get LH. I think this is bad, Wen a monster at same level as me dies from 1(one)blow I will leave this game siince its come about industry greed ,not Gaming
They hunger for money. Their profit margins can't swell enough so don't expect any price cuts.
Yeah for more of the same. I love Blizzard fanbois. Lets ALL roll a deathknight and go grind something for 58 hours so we can get a crappy reward.
I am wondering since its release years ago and the price of the game and expansion why not drop the subcription price to the current players who have been on it for more than a year or two as a thank you for there support.

Activision Blizzard (as they are now called) are a multi billion pound corp and with StarCraft 2 (hurry up darn nab it) and Diablo 3 coming next year there's even more money. Hell StarCraft 2 is coming in 3 seperate games to tell each story of the 3 Terran, Protoss & Zerg.