WoWHead has changed it's background, in an official Blizzard ad, to announce the release date of the Wrath. Plan that vacation time now!

Considering there is nothing up on either Blizzard.com or WorldofWarcract.com, I'm skeptical. And given how many bugs there seem to be right now between WotLK Beta and what is being seen on the PTR, that adds even more to my skepticism.

Blizzard confirmed that the release date announcement was an official Blizzard ad.

Be skeptical that they'll stick to their plan, but not that it doesn't come from Blizzard.

They have also said 3.0.2 should hit live sooner than later, and indicated mid-October as likely. There better be some furious patching on the PTR over the next few weeks to hit mid-October!

Where?

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com

I'll leave it as a little more official looking linkname.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/preorder/index.htm

Wow that was not there when I went looking.

Sure it wasn't...

Discrediting Mirajj and Mordekhuul was just your first step on the road to World Domination!

Well, back to the drawing board.



That said, I have to go pre-order my collector's edition...

Anyone found it online yet? No luck with CC/Best Buy/Gamestop and Amazon for me.

Me either. I guess I'll stop by gamestop on the way home or tomorrow and see if they know anything about the Collector's edition yet.

I have too much vacation left right now, and must burn it before the end of the year, so I'm thinking a week off Nov 17-21 would be a nice coincidence ;-)

It's interesting to note that when I went to the different company websites to see what their delivery dates were they all said vastly different things. Gamestop said that they would guarantee delivery on 11/13/08 if you buy overnight shipping (if your area has overnight shipping), Best Buy showed an estimated delivery date of 11/3/08 to 11/8/08, Circuit City showed a release date of 11/3/08, Amazon.com showed a release date of 11/3/08 which is when they would pick it up from Blizzard, ship it to their distributors and then pass it along to the customer, meaning it could take 1 day to several days from the "release date" to arrive.

So I get the impression that Blizzard wants to have a worldwide release on 11/13/08 but that they are probably shipping to vendors on 11/3/08. In the past (TBC, for example), I know some people were able to get their boxes prior to the release date by ordering online with certain companies. My TBC experiences were with Best Buy and Gamestop. I preordered a copy of the TBC collector's edition from Best Buy for delivery to myself (priority shipping) and a copy of the normal edition for delivery to my girlfriend (standard shipping). I received an email saying the normal edition had shipped on the 12th (release date of 16th). However, on the day before the release date, I called Best Buy to see what the status on the collector's edition was since I had not yet received an email saying it had shipped. They said that it was on backorder and that it might ship in 2-3 weeks. Thus, I was forced to go down to my local Gamestop and preorder a copy around 8pm the night before the release. I was able to pick up the Gamestop copy the next day on the way home from work. Later that evening, I received an email from Best Buy saying that the collector's edition had shipped. The day after release, my girlfriend's standard copy from Best Buy was delivered. Two days after release my Best Buy collector's edition copy was finally delivered. Obviously, I was not particularly happy with how things worked out with Best Buy since they gave me misinformation the day before release (saying it was on backorder) and then everything was delivered AFTER the release date. Also, the priority shipping that I paid extra for just meant that they shipped it later, resulting in that copy arriving a day LATER than the normal shipping. Conversely, the pick-up from Gamestop was a snap, despite the fact that I preordered the night before release.

Does anyone have any suggestions on a company that can actually deliver on getting the boxes out to people? Or, even better, did anyone manage to get their hands on a copy of TBC earlier so that you can have it installed and ready to roll once the switches are flipped online to allow for use of the expansion? I'm thinking that I'll probably try to order a collector's edition from one company and a standard copy from another (one for my girlfriend, one for me) to help out our odds of getting at least one of them on the release date, but I just need to figure out how to do that.

I have the collector's edition on order from ebgames with overnight delivery:

http://www.ebgames.com/Catalog/ProductDeta...duct%5FID=72700

Shame on you for how you treat your girlfriend! Girls like pets too!

So far I have had good results preordering from ebgames. The shipments arrive on release day, as I recall. The ebgames website says powered by gamestop, so maybe they are the same entity.

Actually, since she didn't start up her copy of TBC until after I got the CE, I gave her the key from that box so she ended up with the netherwhelp pet. She also has the phoenix pet, now, so I think she'll be ok with me picking up the WotLK pet.

Also, as you noted earlier, the EBGames and GameStop websites seem to be run together, thus the Game Stop appears to have the collector's edition up now, as well.
GameStop.com

Shows what you know.

I'm not skeptical.

They've announced the date, that WILL BE THE DATE. They rent space on brick and mortar shelves for a specific date. That contract must be in place well in advance, and they can't sell it back.

Ready or not, here it comes.

Yeah, 6 million subscribers. This is likely the last X-pac. If it comes out buggy they'll fix it with the live team and still make money hand over fist. Even if they piss off a bunch of the subscribers they should be confident that D3 and SC2 will calm some of those ruffled feathers and still bring them in a ton of money while they work on their next cash cow. And based on what I've done in beta, even with the bugs it won't be any worse than any other major patch that has bugs in it anyway.

They can easily afford whatever hit they'll take. And since even with the bugs, from what I've seen every class and every spec will get buffed in whatever gear they wear so people won't care as much. Even with WF not procing on the MH and even with only rank 5 procing at the right right on the off hand my enh shaman still got a DPS boost and more flexibility in being able to off heal in a pinch.

If any classes is weaker than what they are now I'd like to see it. That is not to say that the rankings of relative strength between classes/spec didn't change (marks hunters got quite the boost and beast may now be the weakest raiding spec believe it or not, but beast in beta is still stronger than beast on live).

IMO, this will be the last expansion pack done this way for WoW. Wrath will tidy up all the story lines from WC3 which makes it possible to setup WC4 and then WoW2. They still haven't announce their 4th project and that's either going to be something along the revitalization of Ghost or it's going to be WC4. While they may throw a bone later on that will open level 90 and maybe 100, I don't think that expansion will be sold like tBC and Wrath. WoW is coming on to the typical end of life cycle that MMOs go through (about 5 to 6 years).

Yep, those sales figures really show that WoW is in a major decline.



What surprised me this time around is that Blizzard is so willing to throw the pre-expansion patch out there. Before TBC, this didn't have the impact it will now - completely thrashing arena balance and making Season 4 a joke. I guarantee there are going to be some ubercombos the moment the patch comes out that just can't be countered, because this many massive changes all at once can't be balanced at all yet. If you're playing one of those ubercombos, you're in luck. If not...oh well...

I have no idea if Priests will be part of an ubercombo. I'm betting not though since the core issues of Priest survivability in arenas aren't changing. Priests will gain armor and other defensive abilities, but still no ability to escape forces them to be reliant on their specific-class arena partners to peel. It'll be a wacky few weeks though as arena balance is completely turned on its head.

-Bolty

What will probably happen is that after this expansion development for future WoW releases will be passed to another developer or group. This will not be the last WoW expansion. Will NOT. There has already been rumblings from the developers in random interviews about a graphical update in post wrath updates or expansions.

There is just too much money in WoW for them not to run it till it's dry. Everquest 1 (one!) is about to release a new expansion 10+ years later. in fact, the 5-6 year cycle you mention is illusory. MMO's follow a pattern, either they die in about 2 years ala AC2 or they keep milking the subscriptions for as long as possible. The two oldest MMO's are still going "strong" (everquest and ultima online). Subsequent releases are still out there finding their own niche like SW Galaxies and Anarchy Online (with AO switching to a free play model.)

Wrath doesn't tidy up all the storylines from WC3.

Nazjatar is still coming.

Emerald Dream has been planned for an expansion since release.

Don't worry about Blizzard not having enough content. They'll make up new stuff (or steal it from somewhere else, but anyway).

Agreed, at level 220 we'll be fighting the burning legion in an alternative reality Draenor where sheeps are carnivorous!

...

Despite everything telling me otherwise, I still think that's awesome.

One of our mages (Higler) was playing on the PTR in some PUG arena groups. He said it was pretty amusing. Basically, the fight starts, folks get in range, people just blow up - no real time to consider getting heals off. We'll have to see how it is when live with organized teams, of course.

You misunderstand, this is the last expansion that they're going to sell in stores. Any further expansions will probably either be free for those that have bought the expansions up to this point or they will be purchased through Blizzard for a nominal fee for download (say $10 to $15 since there will be no need for packaging and middle men).



5 to 6 years is when the technology of a MMO really starts to show how long in the teeth it is. It also tends to be the time when you start to see a slow decline in subscribers as newer MMOs with better technology come out. Right now, there isn't much competition against WoW because no one has quite figured out Blizzard's formula. Likewise, SOE has proven that you can run multiple MMOs at once and still make a good amount of money.

Yes, the story lines have been tidied up. The story lines involved Illidan, Arthas, Kael, Vashj, and Kil'Jaedan, all of those characters will be dead and buried when Wrath closes, thus all the story lines from WC3 are closed.

The Emerald Dream had no role in WC3. Nazjatar had no role in WC3 outside of being the home of the Naga. The Undermine had no role in WC3 outside of being the home of the Goblins.

All the antagonists for WC3 will be dead and there is enough new antagonists introduced in WoW to build on for WC4 and then a WoW2.

The decline is never sudden, it's slow as other MMOs bring new technology to the table. If you look at games like EQ and UO, their subscriber base is no where near what it was in their technological hay day. As new MMOs come out with better technology and have figured out Blizzard's formula, you'll see players start to dwindle away from WoW. Will WAR start to cut into Blizzard's subscriber base, I don't know, I don't think it will, but it could happen becaues WAR is using newer technology (remember, WoW is based on MMO technology started in 2001 and 2002 with updates here and there).

More to the point, they're not really going to attempt to balance it at 70. Balance at 80 is the goal, and as pre-TBC showed being level 70 with talents for level 80 throws things off a bunch.

Let's assume a large 50% attrition rate per year. How many years does it take to cut the numbers from 10 million or so to where it's not economical to do an expansion? 6? 7? 8?

The conclusions you draw are based on extrapolating a very few data points to predict the course of a very-far-outlying data point. The course of WoW history is as likely emulate the Microsoft model as that of prior MMOs.

Isn't WoW still gaining subscriptions at this point? Talking about it coming to an end seems a bit far off still.

Also, they still release patches for D2 and starcraft, and neither of those has made them any money in years. They will keep releasing patches and new content for WoW as long as they can make money at it.

200 million? that's about a million subscribers. considering they're well over 10 million at the moment, it will be a long while before WoW becomes unprofitable.

If someone is good at financials, calculate it from this:
http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.c...104659-07-80748

At 2 years per expansion, figure 4 to 5 expansions max as at that point WoW will be 10 years old (since release, getting close to 15 years since inception, even Microsoft doesn't plan to have an O/S around that long with XP being the exception).



We also haven't had a great deal of MMOs until the last 5 years. Right now we have UO, EQ 1, AC 1, and Lineage 1. Now, look at their subscribers at their heights compared to 5 to 6 years from release. All of said MMOs have dropped to about half the number of subscribers at the 5 to 6 year mark (remember, at one time Lineage 1 *was* the 800 pound Gorilla for world wide MMOs). If someone can produce a MMO with the winning formula WoW has with newer technology, I can see Blizzard losing market share. They'll lose it slower than the above listed MMOs, but they will lose it if someone can make a more compelling MMO.

WoW is right now at the 4 year mark, we'll see in the next 2 years how things pan out.

We'll see how things pan out with Warhammer Online, but my guess is that WoW won't lose a significant number of subscribers until Diablo 3 or another Blizzard MMO comes out. I haven't heard of anything on the horizon other than Warhammer that is supposed to pose a significant threat to WoW. Age of Conan was supposed to, and look how that turned out.

The "problem" is that you have millions of MMO players who have gotten used to the WoW way of doing things. For anything to come out and win over that crowd, it's going to have to basically copy & paste the WoW formula with fancier graphics. At which point a two things will probably happen:

1. It will be written off as a WoW clone (for good or bad)
2. Blizzard will upgrade the graphics engine of WoW

Even the successor to WoW will have this problem unless they do something completely different. World of Starcraft, maybe?

There is a 3rd problem.

WoW has so many players because someone with a 3 year old comp (Athlon 64 3200, 6600GT video, 2 GB of ram) can play WoW just fine (which makes sense since WoW is a 4 year old game now). But that improved graphics engine that Warhammer has does not perform well at all on that system. And actually I'm not sure that processor is actually 3 years old and the video might not be either, though they are getting close enough.

If you don't have an 8800 + and something a few notches above that processor you won't really enjoy the Warhammer experience. And there are some features of it that I'm waiting to see how Blizzard steals because they are good.

It would have had a good chance of pulling me if it didn't perform as poorly as it does and most of of the graphics are wasted since I have to turn them off anyway. And WoW actually does a better job with keeping things feeling better as you turn off options. When you turn off options in Warhammer you'll see toons do animations that no longer make any sense because of the other effects you turned off and it actually caused some issues with play for me because I couldn't figure out what was going on.

But game play had some advantages over WoW. Though I have no clue about end game. Early PvP was more fun, even though it still had some issues that I would have liked to have seen addressed and some of the early PvE stuff was quite interesting. Public Quests were pretty fun. And it was obvious that Warhammer came out about 3/4 baked. They rushed it out, it needs around 6 - 12 months in my not so expert opinion but I can see how they couldn't afford that, and it plays at least as well as WoW did on launch. At least it didn't seem to have the database issues that WoW was plagued with.

If WoW launched today with the issues it had on initial launch it would have died. I wouldn't put up with the way it performed then. But it was the first MMO that I did anything other than beta test on too.

No, they haven't.

The presence of the naga have not been properly explained; they are simply "there". They appear in WC3.

The biggest protagonist during WC3 has made exactly one appearance in WoW; Malfurion Stormrage. He is the direct link to the Emerald Dream.

Again, all of the bad guys have been dealt with, thus closure for WC3. Queen Azshara was never amongst the antagonists, thus the only Naga that were being dealt with were those under Vashj's command. Vashj is dead, thus the storyline of the Naga is tied up.

The Emerald Dream was nothing more than waking the druids to help in the confrontation against the Legion. Again, there isn't anything in the dream that needs to be tied up. The things coming out of what happened to the dream *since* WC3 and WoW would make for a WC4 storyline.

The silithid, the corruption of the dream, the old gods, and the elemental lords present a number of potential antagonists for WC4.

Well, a lot of WoW's issues on launch were directly tied to its popularity. How many game companies have sold their first year's estimated copies in a month or two? They played catchup with servers for most of the first year.

You're talking in MMO generalities about a game that is ten times as successful as its nearest competitor. Whatever may be generally true about MMOs, you can be pretty sure WoW isn't typical.

-Jester

Yeah, charts like these kind of put things into perspective:
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart7.html
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart1.html

This is not your father's Oldsmobile.

Not really, Lineage 1 was in this position once and look what happened with it. It had 3 million subscribers at it's height, the nearest was 500k to 600k (EQ). As the techonology moves forward, a MMO will lose it's subscribers as people move on to the next game with better technology.

Yeah, they're all the way down to 1 million subscribers after 10 years.

This means if WoW follows the same trend, it will peak next year around 11-12mil, then it'll end up all the way down to 4 million subs where it will still be incredibly profitable.

Furion is trapped in stasis inside the Emerald Nightmare, last I heard.

And I think Arthas was the lead role in the overall War3 storyline... he certainly changed more things than Furion did, especially when you consider what he did under the thrall of Ner'zhul. Wiped out Quel'thalas (thus starting the events that lead to the Blood Elves), eliminated Uther and the Knights of the Silver Hand, obliterated the human kingdom of Lordaeron, corrupted most of the Night Elf lands, sacrificed Muradin to gain power in the form of Frostmourne (and also betrayed his own soldiers by convincing them that the ogre and troll mercenaries he hired were the reason their ships were destroyed, which is basically betraying two sets of people at the same time), and by making the Scourge more powerful and more autonomous, heavily influenced the corruption, exile, and (in WoW time) death of Illidan. About the only people he didn't screw over were Thrall's group.

But it's been a while since I played through War3.

I have trouble seeing a World of Starcraft, for the same reasons I don't think the proposed Warhammer 40,000 MMO that Vigil is working on will pan out.

In both War40k and SC, guns and other forms of ranged weaponry are the norm, while melee combat is more of an exception (dedicated melee units exist in both games and all infantry in the War40k games have the option of engaging in melee, but the vast majority of infantry and vehicular combat is done at range.) I don't see an easy method of balancing it out so that melee units aren't either overpowered or underpowered. Going from Dawn of War, if a melee squad gets in range of a ranged squad (like, say, a squad of Khorne Berzerkers starts mixing it up with a squad of Tactical Marines), the ranged squad is going to be ripped apart. But wouldn't that be unfair in an MMO setting? Keep away or die? What about for the melee? It'd be like trying to play a Warrior in WoW without use of Charge, Intercept, or Intervene - if you start out in range, you might be okay, but you're screwed otherwise.

Then, you also have to consider how upgrades would work, especially in terms of gear. Chaos Marines and Space Marines are, far and large, heavy infantry. With the exception of certain units (like Scout Marines and Cultists), they wear power armor, use big guns and and chainswords, and are generally supposed to look big and tough. It wouldn't fit if you started out wearing a t-shirt and jeans with an air rifle, would it? So how are you supposed to get upgrades as far as gear goes? You already look badass, and appearance is 90% of the reason to get new gear - every person that grinds gear right now in WoW knows that, so don't try and tell me it's not the reason you do it.

Finally, as far as ranged combat goes... stat-driven shooters suck. I have yet to play any shooter that bases its accuracy on roleplaying stats that didn't suck. Maybe Fallout 3 will buck the trend, but I'll probably play a melee role in that game, too, just like I did with the first two. If you're going to shoot at people using a first-person perspective, your accuracy should be reliant on your aim and ability to control the weapon's recoil... not stats. If you wanted to play it like Metroid Prime, where you lock on to a target, then I wouldn't have any issues with it being stat-driven, because then that'd probably be really fun. Not that Metroid Prime was stat-driven, but I thought the lock-on system was a superb way of allowing people with slow reflexes (further complicated by the fact that gamepads are terrible for shooters) to enjoy a first-person shooter while still rewarding those with good reflexes.

The Emerald Dream is the Emerald Nightmare.


I'm not talking about what character had the biggest influence. I mean protagonist as in "hero", which Arthas certainly is not.

Heroes aren't closure, it is the defeat of the enemies of the heroes that bring closure. Look at all the literary works out there. Does what the heroes do after the enemy is defeat make for an interesting story line? No. How boring of a book would the years that pass between the scourging of the Shire and Bilbo and Frodo leaving with the Elves? How interesting of a story would that be? How interesting do you think the domestic lives of Leia and Han would be after the Empire is defeated with Leia doing diplomatic things and Han just hanging around being the good husband? You see why following the heroes is boring and doesn't lead to any real closure with the villians defeated?

Hi,


Now there would be a story that would cross from science fiction (OK, OK, space opera) to fantasy.

--Pete

No, instead he's the primary villain from War3. More than anyone from the Legion or anywhere else. His role is larger than anyone else's. Heroes are boring - villains aren't.

And the Emerald Dream became the Emerald Nightmare through some circumstance(s) we aren't aware of. It used to be what druids and the green dragonflight went into in order to meditate or go into stasis or something of that nature... now it's been corrupted, causing the green dragons to go insane/go berserk, and lock the druids into it, Furion included.

I doubt you could make a full expansion out of the Emerald Nightmare on its own, but you could probably make a sizable content patch, a la Quel'Danas+Sunwell, using it.

When have I ever said we should follow the heroes once their story is concluded?

Malfurion's story ISN'T concluded, and as he was the biggest hero in WC3.


What is your point?

Heroes are not boring as long as they are active, and Malfurion is.

Point being that heroes are often more static than villains are, since their motivation is nearly always either to fight a specific villain, or fight for "the greater good."

What will Furion fight, now that Illidan, Vashj, Kael, and even Kil'Jaeden are dead? Arthas will eventually be dead as a result of WotLK. Kel'thuzad and all his generals, too.

Sargeras died a long time ago, I think - pretty sure one of the campaign missions in War2 had you looking for his tomb.

Mannoroth is dead by Grom Hellscream's hand. Magtheridon is also dead.

Who is left to fight? They could magic up some random super bad villain, but there's no way he or she could have a decent backstory. All of the trails that War3 started are gonna be done by the end of WotLK's cycle - at least as far as villains go, anyway.

What's left? Well, the Horde and Alliance have never been on good terms, so it's bound to blow up again at some point. You could still have Thrall and Jaina (together?) existing as examples of how the two different factions could be. Hell, we know half-orcs are possible.

I don't see much in the way of plot advancement happening in WoW anymore. I think it'll be another Warcraft strategy game, if anything.