World of Warcraft

i play on wow oh 3 european servers and although i m enjoying the lich king  a lot . i m noticing there does nt appear to be the same influx of new blood that happened around the release of the burning crusade . i think perhaps its because theres only the death knight which starts at 55 and no new races for people to start from level one perhaps . also maybe we ll see a lot of new players around christmas . i m wondering if anyone else has noticed this ? 

The high level zones are very busy. In TBC my server hovered around the low/medium pop border. Now everywhere seems full of players and I seriously lag in Dalaran.

But I'd imagine the low level zones are ghost towns at the moment. Everyone has stopped playing alts in order to level mains and DKs. So even if new players arrived they are unlikely to make up for the alts that have left.

I suspect populations have gone up, but these are mainly returning players not new players. The new players, will, as always, arrive with Christmas.

From personal experience i noticed a rise in new players in the couple of months running up to the expansion and especially in after the official announcement of the release date.

I have noticed that the high and low level zones are pretty busy overall, but the mid-level (30-50) seem very quiet at the moment, but as i say that is just from personal experience on Aggramar and Emerald dream EU servers.

My son plays, and his server in the US, Kel Thuzad had 1000 person queues in the first few nights after the release, and I heard Blizzard opened 20 new servers.

Sounds like a decent influx to me so far.

WOW battlechest (original wow) also continues to be in the top 20 of pc game sales which indicates a steady stream of new players.

Originally posted by googajoob7

i play on wow oh 3 european servers and although i m enjoying the lich king  a lot . i m noticing there does nt appear to be the same influx of new blood that happened around the release of the burning crusade . i think perhaps its because theres only the death knight which starts at 55 and no new races for people to start from level one perhaps . also maybe we ll see a lot of new players around christmas . i m wondering if anyone else has noticed this ? 

This is because wotlk is not living up to all the hype...Ive said this before and ill say it again, ive been in Best Buy, Wal Mart, Gamestop, and a few other lesser known for selling pc software stores and I have seen boxes upon boxes of this expansion sitting on tables and end shelves collecting dust...In fact at Best Buy this week I noticed an employee boxing back up some copies of wotlk, now that could mean 1 or 2 things...they are making shelve space for other games or they are moving merchandise off the floor that isn't selling...wotlk brought nothing new to the table cept a new class and some refurbished NPC's, Quests and graphics..Many of my friends that have played it just for the PvP and sieging stated that it was the worse thing they have ever experienced, but they like a few others won't leave so quickly because of time invested....

There are people already level 80 a week or so into release already...What does that tell you? easy, no challenge and now they get to sit around another 3 years..Now you would think with all the money blizzard makes off software and merchandise that in 3 years of developement that there would be more of a challenge...Reminds me of the EQ days....Bring out expansions every now and then to keep people happy while you pour money into other games...

IMO WOW has reached its peak and sometime in 2009 when other MMO's start appearing and other MMO's improve, people will eventually stop subscribing, not everyone, but that fabricated 12 mil number will go on a decline..Its evident in most of the Forums on this and other sites that people are disappointed and are losing intrest..

I know some people think that numbers will improve during Xmas, I would say don't hold your breath

For the most part, the expansion wasn't designed to attract new players, but catter to old players. Its only natural that low level zones wouldn't see a large amount of new players. Also, queue times may of turned off new players for some time.

Originally posted by woody1974

Originally posted by googajoob7

i play on wow oh 3 european servers and although i m enjoying the lich king  a lot . i m noticing there does nt appear to be the same influx of new blood that happened around the release of the burning crusade . i think perhaps its because theres only the death knight which starts at 55 and no new races for people to start from level one perhaps . also maybe we ll see a lot of new players around christmas . i m wondering if anyone else has noticed this ? 

 

This is because wotlk is not living up to all the hype...Ive said this before and ill say it again, ive been in Best Buy, Wal Mart, Gamestop, and a few other lesser known for selling pc software stores and I have seen boxes upon boxes of this expansion sitting on tables and end shelves collecting dust...In fact at Best Buy this week I noticed an employee boxing back up some copies of wotlk, now that could mean 1 or 2 things...they are making shelve space for other games or they are moving merchandise off the floor that isn't selling...wotlk brought nothing new to the table cept a new class and some refurbished NPC's, Quests and graphics..Many of my friends that have played it just for the PvP and sieging stated that it was the worse thing they have ever experienced, but they like a few others won't leave so quickly because of time invested....

There are people already level 80 a week or so into release already...What does that tell you? easy, no challenge and now they get to sit around another 3 years..Now you would think with all the money blizzard makes off software and merchandise that in 3 years of developement that there would be more of a challenge...Reminds me of the EQ days....Bring out expansions every now and then to keep people happy while you pour money into other games...

IMO WOW has reached its peak and sometime in 2009 when other MMO's start appearing and other MMO's improve, people will eventually stop subscribing, not everyone, but that fabricated 12 mil number will go on a decline..Its evident in most of the Forums on this and other sites that people are disappointed and are losing intrest..

I know some people think that numbers will improve during Xmas, I would say don't hold your breath

Numbers improving?   Wrath sold 2.8M copies in the FIRST DAY and is still the #1 PC game on any chart.    People keep saying how 'bored' wow players will be.. but the fact is there were 2.8M people who were so bored with WOW that they couldn't wait to get more of that boring game.   The same thing could have been said back when BC was released "omg. it's boring, just more of the same"... yet througout the life of BC, WOW kept breaking new subscriber records.  People have been saying that WOW would peak for the past 3 years, and it still hasn't stopped growing.

I honestly don't know what game you are thinking about in 2009 that is going to hurt WOW (please give an example).  WOW actually GREW in subscribers during the launch of AOC and Warhammer.. there are no games coming out in 2009 with any where near the marketing budgets as those two games.

Oh, and if you think Warhammer or AOC is going to be reborn and compete.  Take a look here at who is #1 (wrath) and who is not even in the top 100 (warhammer and AOC).  Even the original WOW is #17 this week, which means a ton more new players are joining WOW then are joining aoc or warhammer

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/videogames/229575/ref=pd_ts_vg_nav

Your exact post is exactly what someone could have said when BC was launched, yet the game has grown by nearly 4M people since then.

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Originally posted by woody1974
This is because wotlk is not living up to all the hype...Ive said this before and ill say it again, ive been in Best Buy, Wal Mart, Gamestop, and a few other le