World of Warcraft rant

[Spatula]

"Trying to create demand" makes zero sense. "Trying to limit server population" sounds more reasonable, if Blizzard is indeed holding back copies.

I haven't had any real problems on the servers that I've played on (Lothar, Feathermoon, Shadowsong), and one of those (Lothar) is on the other side of the country from me. Those servers that have problems really do have problems though (Icecrown is one of them, I played on it briefly) and if I were Blizzard I'd ban new characters from being created on those until they rectify whatever the trouble is - mainly to keep new players from having that be their first exposure to the game.

I will say that the lag has gotten somewhat worse since New Year's.

 

[KenM]

I managed to finally get a copy, my local EB got 2 copies in, so I grabbed one. I'm playing a Night Elf Warrior on the Draenor server. I have not had that much time to play, I got called into work for a bit. But I like it so far, better then EQ, seems alot more solo friendly. I'll have let you know what I think after I played it more.
Anyone know why the download for the patch was so slow? It took me like an hour and half, with Broadband.
Also, how many characters can one account have?

 

[Dark Jezter]

Also, how many characters can one account have?

I seem to recall hearing that the limit is 8 characters per account. It's possible that this may have been changed since then, though.

 

[Captain Howdy]

Glad you found a copy. They are sold out where I am too (Detroit area). Luckily, I got a copy for x-mas, but some of my friends are having trouble finding it... I think they all ended up getting it online.
Lag hasn't been an issue for me. Although, when my guild (Sturmgrenadier; Bleeding Hollow server) raids a major alliance city, we tend to crash the server. Muhahaha...

 

[LightPhoenix]

The biggest times I have lag are in the major cities... at least Ironforge and Stormwind on the Alliance side... haven't played a Horde character yet. Gryphon riding tends to lag a lot too, but I suspect a lot of that is because of how fast terrain happens to go by.

Seriously, I don't think anyone expected WoW to shatter the kinds of records it did. I mean, most people expected Blizzard to put out a quality product, and be among the top-tier MMORPGs, but not to blow every other MMORPG completely out of the water. I'd rather Blizzard stop and address the issues they are having before starting a second wave of games being released.

 

[Kitsune]

Well, considering that WoW sold more copies on its day of release than any other PC game in history, sold over 600,000 copies during the holiday season, and broke the record for the most users online at a single time, it's understandable that they did not anticipate such a high demand.

Considering that they printed each and every copy sold, no, it's not very understandable that they didn't have the server capacity to go with those copies. It's not as if those 600,000 boxes suddenly materialized on store shelves by themselves, after all. Vivendi printed each disk that went out the door of the warehouses, and they should have known full well that those copies were bound to sell in fairly short order.

 

[Thanee]

Well, considering that WoW sold more copies on its day of release than any other PC game in history, ...

Did it? I would understand, if this is true for MMORPGs, but any other PC game?

Wasn't there some shooter recently, that sold 2 million copies on the first weekend?

...sold over 600,000 copies during the holiday season, and broke the record for the most users online at a single time, ...

That is also hardly believable, there are MMORPGs in asia with 5 million (!) active accounts. Or is that in the US only?

...it's understandable that they did not anticipate such a high demand.

I'd be rather worried, if they did not expect at least half a million to a million customers... I'd actually expect more than that, once europe goes online (is asia online already?), too, but they have their own servers (asia, too, of course), so I suppose that doesn't make much of a difference in the end.

I think, every Blizzard game of the last decade or so sold millions of copies.

Yes, all three (or was it four?)!

Also considering, that 500,000 US open beta accounts were gone within 24h, that certainly hints at a high demand. The european pre-order was sold out after a couple days, too, and that was also some hundreds of thousands copies, which you even had to pay for 3 months before release.

But they already doubled the servers right after release in the US, I heard. They certainly will resolve those issues, just give them some time. They really should have enough experience with server load. You can always just try another server, which might be less problematic.

Anyways, I'm sure WoW will break all international MMORPG records (maybe not in asia, but anywhere else).

Well, mid february I'll be able to join the fun, too.

Bye
Thanee

 

[KenM]

BTW, my character name is Aldar, Night Elf warrior on Draenor server. One other quick gameplay question. The WoW fourms are a mess, IMO, and i have trouble logging into them from time to time as well.
Anyway, my question is about stances, how do you change it?

 

[Thanee]

(see Rugger's post next page)

Bye
Thanee

 

[Klaus]

Is there a demo one could check out?