Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, The Burning Crusade, Making money, Wrath of the Lich King

Gamasutra has received an interesting stat from the good folks at NPD: after hearing that The Sims 3 sold over 800,000 copies in its first month, they were curious to see what kind of unit sales our own World of Warcraft has experienced. And the numbers are pretty big: among the original game and all of the expansion packs since the vanilla release over four years ago, NPD says 8.6 million boxes of WoW have been sold in the US. That’s a little misleading if you’re comparing it to actual subscription numbers: remember that this is over three different releases (so the actual number of all-time players, not current players, is probably 1/3 of that), and it includes different collectors’ editions of each of the three game editions. So there are nowhere near 8.6 million US players of WoW — that’s just how many times players have come through the retail line with the various releases.

What that is, however, is a lot of money. Gamasutra estimates that at an average of $30 for each unit sold (the vanilla game currently retails at $20, but the expansions all sell at $40, and of course the original game was more expensive once upon a time), that’s $258 million in income for Blizzard. In short, Blizzard’s making a mint at the retail counter, even before they sign anyone up for subscriptions.

Then again, if you look at their own costs, those aren’t insubstantial, either — Activision’s Bobby Kotick claimed that anyone starting up an MMO to compete with WoW would have to throw at least half a billion dollars into the mix just to get started, so we can presume Blizzard has spent at least $500 million on their staff, development, and hardware. So it’s not like they’re taking it all to the bank, though we can at least presume they’re sitting firmly in the black.

NPD: World of Warcraft has sold 8.6 million boxes at retail originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King

Blizzard has been having all kinds of issues trying to bring World of Warcraft back online in China, but here’s one piece of good news for them: China’s Ministry of Culture has gone through the game and approved all of the content in it. They apparently were concerned about some violent content (we know they’ve already made changes in the past to the Undead models), but that’s now been cleared, and the only thing left is final approval by the General Administration of Press and Publication. There’s no date on when that might happen, but it seems that will be soon (not soon(tm), just soon).

Blizzard should be extremely happy to see these content checks cleared, as it means that they’re not only that much closer to bringing the servers back online, but that they can also finally bring out Wrath of the Lich King there. The whole issue with Netease and The9 backed things up, and then these content checks were a problem, but hopefully most of the obstacles have been cleared by now, and Chinese players can soon start making their way back into the game and up to the snowy shores of Northrend.

China’s Ministry of Culture approves WoW content originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Odds and ends, News items, Contests, Wrath of the Lich King

SteelSeries have announced plans to give away four signed versions of their limited edition Wrath mouse pads via their Facebook page. They will be giving away one of each mouse pad until Friday to anyone who becomes a fan via Facebook. The mouse pads are signed by twelve pro gamers, who play both WoW and Warcraft III, including members of SK Gaming and Team EG.

This giveaway is the latest in their Month of Madness giveaway and if you’d like to see more shots of the super-rare mouse pads in their full glory, check out their blog and then head on over to their Facebook page to sign up and stand a chance of winning.

SteelSeries giving away Wrath mouse pads signed by WarCraft pro-gamers originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Economy, Expansions, The Burning Crusade, Lore, Bosses, Leveling, Buffs, Mounts, Alts, Wrath of the Lich King

Times they are a changin’, and as Patch 3.2 hits the PTR with a new wealth of mechanics aimed at making the journey to 80 that much easier, why not take a moment to look back at how Azeroth has changed?

Leveling used to take a long time, and one of the first things a friend told me was that “the game started at 60.” While the level cap might have changed, it’s something I heartily agree with.Those of you who joined the game around the time of the latest expansion or even before might hear others speaking with misty-eyes of the olden days of Classic WoW when it took an age to get from Darnassus to Stormwind.

While WoW might have a much lower learning curve than, say, EVE Online, it does still have one. But WoW is known as a bit of a grind fest and the ever growing level cap, which currently stands at 80 but will no doubt go higher with the next expansion, can be pretty daunting.

Especially for a new player.

Continue reading Why leveling will always be important to WoW

Why leveling will always be important to WoW originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Blizzard, Breakfast topics, Wrath of the Lich King

As I’m sure you all know, the Patch 3.2 background downloader has appeared, that fabled herald, signaling that a new patch will finally be appearing on live servers. The PTR has been heaving, bosses have been tested, Druids are rejoicing at their fresh new forms and even more Druid lore has been revealed. Can you feel the electricity in the air yet? The crackle of an-ti-ci-pation (Rocky Horror anyone?) as the patch drip-feeds into your computer? Exciting, huh?

Except it’s never as easy as that, there’s usually a gap between the appearance of the downloader and the patch actually going live. It’s normally a couple of weeks but, well, when do you think it’s going to be? We’ve guesstimated when it might drop in terms of months but the downloader is a sure sign that Patch 3.2 will be hitting Soon (TM). As usual we’re probably not going to know for sure until the patch actually hits or we get confirmation from a Blue in the wee small hours of a Tuesday morning, but that doesn’t stop a little healthy speculation now, does it?

Breakfast Topic: So when is Patch 3.2 going to hit? originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Guilds, Breakfast topics, Instances, Raiding, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King

I was never one for these tabletop strategy games or D&D but thanks to WoW I have become quite a tactician. Tactics are so integrated in the game that they come into play figuring out how to down Hogger without aggroing too many of his numerous minions, to sneaking through hostile territory and avoiding NPCs who want to kill you all the way to confronting KT in Naxx or Ignis in Ulduar. The latter is especially true, Ignis is a nightmare where a knowledge of tactics is life or death. When your raid leader asks if everyone knows the tactics and you all nod heads and mutter yes, it’s not actually courtesy, he or she is trying to figure out how many people will survive long enough to down the giant er … giant.

Once upon a time all you had to do to learn the tactics was play. Wiping on bosses and the depression of death, failure and repair bills can be a great motivator. At the same time, there are few unique boss fights in WoW. They all follow some kind of pattern and sometimes phases are even borrowed from other mobs. Others, such as Shade of Aran’s Flame Wreath go down in lore and legend, even getting their own ever-so-catchy (nay beautiful) theme tune. I challenge anyone to move after having heard that (I even have that in iTunes and would play it just in case my raid forgot. No one ever did.).

So I wonder, constant readers, how do you learn tactics? I can read WoWwiki, for example, until I’m blue in the face but because of the weird way my brain is wired (don’t ask), the only was I can truly learn tactics is in the fight itself. Yes, there’s YouTube, there’s the pre-boss-fight sit down where the raid leader does a run though the fight because no one bothered to take ten minutes to do some reading up. What methods do you use?

Breakfast topic: How do you learn tactics? originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Events, Odds and ends, Blizzard, News items, Instances, Expansions, Raiding, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Battlegrounds

Videogamer.com has a nice long interview with World of Warcraft Producer Tom Chilton about everything from patch 3.2 and the Argent Tournament to the future of the game at large. They caught up with him at the Warcraft Regional Finals 2009 tournament in Germany this past week, and in part one, he talks about the upcoming patch and what Blizzard is expecting to get out of it. He says the Isle of Conquest battleground is their most “epic-feeling” instanced PvP setting since Alterac Valley, and that they want it to feel nuts, with players fighting each other via air and land. He also mentions Arena, and says that it was originally designed to be “a fun side PvP activity” that they went a little overboard with during Burning Crusade. Finally, he talks about twinks, and says that neither Blizzard nor twinks, apparently, want to see other players crushed by those who have the time or money to max out their low level characters. Even twinks, says Chilton, want to see competition against each other, and the option to turn XP off will let them do that. I’m not sure I agree with that last one — many twinks seem to beef their characters up just for the chance to lay waste to “normal” players, but Chilton says Blizzard believes otherwise.

The second part of the interview is more general — he talks a little bit about the next expansion (with the same speculation we’ve already heard: Gilneas, the Maelstrom, the Emerald Dream), and says that designing a race is tougher on artists, but designing a class is tougher on designers. He admits that because we had a new class in Wrath, it’s unlikely we’ll see another class so soon in the next expansion, but “not impossible” of course. And he does note that Blizzard tries to “pre-seed” the races before they use them as playable races, so if they are adding in races, chances are we’ve already seen them (which, you may note, wasn’t strictly true with the Draenei in BC). Finally, he talks about the future of Blizzard’s MMO in general, and says it’s still wide open to them: they plan for the game to last for years, and what they do between now and then, whether that be more expansions, microtransactions, or even a free-to-play model, will have to depend on what they want to do at the time.

Very interesting interview. Chilton doesn’t really reveal anything, but you do get the sense that save for a very skeleton plan of one or two years in the future, Blizzard is really playing it fast and loose with World of Warcraft. Even he admits that the game may look very different, depending on how things go, in another four years from now.

Tom Chilton talks about 3.2 and the future of World of Warcraft originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Instances, Expansions, Raiding, Lore, Bosses, NPCs, Wrath of the Lich King

I love this comic from the very talented miggy over at WoW Ladies, not only because it’s funny, but because she’s got a point. Back when the Battle for Mount Hyjal instance in the Caverns of Time appeared in game, we all wondered why we were going there in the first place — unlike the other CoT instances, there were no dragons to fight or strange factions messing with the continuum. All that could happen in there is that we’d screw everything up and ruin time as we know it (and given all the wipes that went on in there, we probably did). But with the Argent Tournament, Blizzard seems to have gone even further: not only is there no clear reason for us to do it, but we’re actually ignoring the threat at hand.

As you know if you’ve read Sacco’s excellent (and completely spoilerrific) guides to the Coliseum raid and the Tournament 5-man, there is a tacked-on reason we’re doing all of this stuff, and it’s that the Horde and Alliance want to send their strongest people to go after Arthas, and the Tournament is a way of sussing out who’s most worthy. But though that makes for some great lore cutscenes, doesn’t it still undermine Arthas’ strength? How powerful can the guy be if there are so many people lining up to kill him we have to fight over it?

Don’t get me wrong, we’re definitely looking forward to the Coliseum, and it’s definitely brought some interesting things and rewards to the game. Just like CoT, in the light of the lore and the MMO genre at large, it’s a great addition. But it is funny that the great Lich King’s main tactic seems to be to have us fight it out between ourselves way before we ever bother taking a shot at him.

Wrath of the Who? originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

That’s a trailer we haven’t seen in awhile, huh? It’s relevant today, I promise! Besides, a little nostalgia is always fun. If I have one grievance with Wrath of the Lich King’s cinematic, it’s that they didn’t give us an incredibly corny catchphrase to spout for nearly two years.

Discolando asked…

“Is there any substance to the rumor I’ve recently read that patch 3.3 will contain another yet unknown raid instance, and patch 3.4 will contain Icecrown Citadel? It does seem more logical to ‘finish’ the expansion with the advertised antagonist instead of a deux ex machina like patch 2.4 gave us.”

Continue reading The Queue: You are slightly more prepared than you were

The Queue: You are slightly more prepared than you were originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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