The expansion pack is a decision point where I know that if I buy it I’ll spend another year glued to this game, so that seems like a good a time as any to put it down. Almost makes me want to quit now rather than spend time getting items that will be useless before too much longer :)

I started playing WoW during the initial wave of paid subscriber (FilePlanet) beta testing. And continued playing for approximately eight months after release day.

I estimate I buy six to twelve games a year.. well until WoW hit shelves. Since then I have bought only six games. And two of those were bought from the bargain section for a fraction of the original cost.

I gave up WoW because of the time sink and how it can have a huge negative effect on real life.

Don’t get me wrong. My hobby is PC gaming. After working eight to twelve hours I need to kill something… so I play games.

BF2 was what pulled me away from WoW finally. My old RvS clan started back up on BF2 and that takes a certain amount of commitment… time, to be good.

I decided to revisit WoW just before the Thanksgiving holiday. I became addicted again until the end of January, 2006.

I left WoW because I grew tired of the care-bear feel and the lame crafting system. Nobody can deny the game has ten times the polish of anything on the market.

I have played more than half a dozen MMO games since beta testing Ultima Online. WoW is simply a collection of systems used on every game before it… just better.

Again the only thing I think they really need to improve on is the crafting system. I found no reason to craft anything since weapons found from drops were always better than what could be made. And I tend not to play with a lot of buffs via potions.

I’ll admit I don’t do a lot of PvP and raids never panned out either. I mainly just grouped with a few friends who also enjoyed questing and exploring.

I think when the Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion hits shelves WoW subscriptions will drop and or player time spent logged in will drastically be reduced.

And that is a good thing in my opinion. Now let me get back to my Coercer in EQ2 … ;)

I don’t really have much comment to offer on WoW’s outward effect on the industry, but I can offer this nugget on its effect within. Publishers have recently been offering more money toward the development process, not less, because they have looked at WoW and realized quality actually does matter and in the end is more profitable. This is a true report, and anything that has that effect is a positive in my book.

You could well ask what the hell they were thinking in the first place, but it’s probably better not to drag out that old chestnut and just accept the welcome change in attitude.

that’s a very interesting nugget on game quality, and I don’t care if it has killed sales - if WoW had that effect on the publisher funding output, I’m going to consider it the best thing that ever happened to the industry :D

I have experienced this myself as a seasoned EQ (EverQuest) player. I do my 12 hours a week playing EQ and with a busy work and girlfriend schedule I don’t have much other time to play other games. If I have a quick hour here or there I would log on and play Battlefield 2. The other reason I don’t buy many games anymore is that I am now extremely picky, I will only buy games that end up registering 10,000 or more players on the gamespy.com/stats. I only play MP and if the MP component of a game is not popular I won’t buy it.

While World of Warcraft is a fantastic MMO it is far from being the greatest. Case in point, I play EverQuest which cators to players who enjoy hard core guild raiding. World of Warcraft does come anywhere close to touching just the tip of the massive array of raid content EQ has. WoW is however a great introduction to new players into the World of MMORPGS’s, from there on players can try out other MMO’s which have alot more content. As the original makers of EverQuest said (now working on Vanguard), ‘Content is King’.

I dont think the solution for EA etc.. is staff cuts etc.. stop useing the internet as a crutch to get patches out to consumers 2 or 3 months after they buy a game. Make a great game and build it right. I think gamers are finally getting sick of buying 50 dollar coasters.

Build an awsome game and they will come.

I run a WoW guild an End game guild in WoW, I used to play a lot of Console games, now when I’m home, I simply don’t have the time. Combine that with Wife and kid and your dreaming if there time for anything but WoW gaming time. :)

I think its a fair point in that I personally don’t buy as many games as I used to, but I wouldn’t put EA layoffs due to this, EA lay off everyone they are a very successfull business and like a bank is always looking for a quick way to make more money for the shareholders, and the fastest way to do that if the profit margin isn’t huge is layoffs. (I guess Need for Speed MXXIII didn’t sell so well eh? :P )

Its a very good discussion but you can never attribute one thing to the collapse of a market, there would be too many other issues, like why is WoW so popular what does it offer that other games can’t? Is it polish, is it an addiction factor? Who knows, it certainly is deserving on at least a study from some crazy uni.

Man imagine if They fixed the latency issues too, my o my the game might even be playable as well as popular!

Milali

Certanly this point of view gots some things right, but I wouldn’t completely agree with it. I been playin MMORPG’s for like almost 4 years now, been trough all kind of different ones and what I want to say is that every game has end. Already now I got friends who are selling their WoW acc’s coz they grew bored of the game. Myself personally like playing WoW for like couple of hours per day, but for example WoW will never be a good game to me like Baldur’s gate or Morrowind or Max Payne etc etc. I will always rather play other games that I got really attached to. Maybe, ya know after one more year or worrying about your guild and items in WoW you will grow bored too, but trust me mate all this euphoria won’t last forever. Think of the Counter-strike for example, when it showed up all played it, there was food, drinks and CS. Now only kids and pro’s play it, but that fine part of players that play for the fun of the game moved on. I’m giving WoW one more year before ppl start leaving for other games.

i’ve played wow and i’ve played daoc.i’ve played video games for many years. video games overall just aren’t as creative and fresh anymore. and the industry moved (bringing many fans with it) to an industry based on better graphics and hardware. Buying a franchise cookie cutter game for the upgraded resolution isn’t attractive to me. especially if i have to drop $400+ on hardware and $60 on the game itself. ($15/month for MMO is a lot more reasonable IMO if i’m not buying other games @ $60)

Wow is a quality game, but blizzard just took advantage of the MMORPG market the way any other company would have. IMO the expansion pack will be the end of MY play and many other players. Not because Blizzard is “doing it wrong” but they aren’t taking the game in the direction i want to play. I don’t have X hours friday and saturday nights to sit in front of wow in a giant raid. That’s not fun to me. PvP in wow is exciting to me, but I lament the days of DAOC RvR… blizzard should have taken a hint from mythic. instance based PvP is not fun. And now it’s not fun dying over and over because i dont’ have the phat gear other players have. end game content is lacking for this player. just adding more dungeons and zones is a cheap cop out.

look in the bargain bin, that’s where the good games are

Since I started playing MMOs my game purchasing has gone down from a game a month to maybe one every 3 or 4 months. Most of these games are older releases as well.

Like all games WoW does get old and boring, but since Blizzard does release new content on a regular basis it does keep me playing. I’m sure with the next gens they can figure ways to update their games and help sales.

I just wanted to point out another factor that was overlooked.

http://pc.gamedaily.com/game/features/?gameid=2475&id=765

“It remains possible, since MMOG’s require a monthly fee and a great deal of time to play, that single player games may drop into a decline if MMO’s become as successful as WoW. The reason being that there simply won’t be as much time or money left to play them.”

I’m sure there are other too.

:)

The only fun part of WoW for me was leveling up. At the top end, when even leveling required hours at a time, I quickly lost interest.

I didn’t play anything else while playing WoW. Who could afford the time?

Now that I’m clean, I just bought and finished _Shadow of the Colossus_. Now THAT is a brilliant game.