Warcraft expansion sells 2.7 million in first week
Mists of Pandaria first rolled out last week, with a separate launch in China a couple of days ago.
Although still a very successful first week by any other standards, by comparison, Cataclysm sold 3.3 million copies on its launch day.
The Mists of Pandaria is the MMO's fourth expansion and brings a new monk class to the game as well as introducing the panda-like Pandaren as playable characters, a race initially introduced to the Warcraft lore as an April fools joke in 2002.
The game's level cap has also been raised from 85 to 90 and the new island of Pandaria has been opened up as a new stomping ground for the forces of the Horde and Alliance.
The launch has managed to boost World of Warcraft's subscriber base back over the 10 million mark, having previously dipped to 9.1 million in the first half of this year. At the end of 2010, the MMO peaked with more than 12 million subscribers.
The 2.7 million sales do not take into account sales figures from China which saw Mists of Pandaria launched on October 2.
'We set out to expand on the sense of fun and discovery that's always been at the heart of World of Warcraft, in addition to adding a huge variety of new content and features to the game.' said Blizzard chief executive and co-founder Mike Morhaime. 'It's been gratifying to see the results of all the work we put into this expansion and to hear all of the positive feedback from players so far.'
The first major content patch for the expansion is currently being developed by Blizzard with release details forthcoming in the next few weeks.
As debate rages as to whether World of Warcraft has peaked or not, Blizzard is still working away on a top secret new MMO codenamed Titan. Although the developer has stated that this will be based on a brand new franchise, with the Pandaren transcending from April fool's joke to a major Warcraft expansion, there is more than one fan hoping for something similar to happen with World of Starcraft.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyNo way! I hardly doubt that could compete with WoW. The offline versions of the pokemon franchise would certainly if you base it off how many have purchased perhaps.
EDIT: Is pokemon online subscription based? :o
It wont be dying any time soon thats for sure, wont be growing either though.
guild wars 2 despite been free to play has bearly got 1/4th of the players is kinda mad. Pretty good game from what ive played so far ( level 37 )
Still waiting for the next big release in this market, Maybe Titan will provide what i am after. ( Hardcore game as wow was in vinalla and tbc, you must beat prev content to progress onwards)
The 1-60 is one of the best bits of the game now :)
Sad to see a few people on this forum who still look down on WoW players, we get enough of that from our IRL freinds ;) Been playing the expansion a bit, not had too much time for it but its been pretty good so far :)
"drug dealer jailed for selling crack cocaine for up to 2700 addicts"
Not since January this year. Rolled 2 new characters and got one of my old ones to 85. After a month decided I can't be arsed with this anymore. Polishing up an old bike doesn't make it new. Either way I didn't have the time to get my characters to 85, or even gear up the one I had just to come home from uni and sit until all hours of the morning trying another raid. Final month I gave up quests and just leveled in instances (if you could ever get into them). Ive always enjoyed instances more and the difficulty made it feel exciting but honestly, nothing is really attracting me back to this especially when ive 20 games on steam still to play and once theyre done I refuse to pay £18 to get 2months play time on a game. It is horrible value really, when a game feels more like work or you have to play it or it goes to waste its no longer worth it. Yes they do a great job in servers and updates but financing isn't my department. I cannot afford to or even have the time to play as much is required to justify the price.
The problem wow does have is the old contingent finds new changes very easy to deal with, and the long experience they have had with the game make it much harder to deal with. Take starcraft 2 for example. The expansion will be more of the same, different story, some new characters, but essentially the same thing/idea but more scenarios. This isn't a game even sc2 fans will play the campaigns on over and over, they probably haven't single playered in a long time, so the expansion feels much fresher. With wow however you do the same things to quest fresh as you do to quest old (admittedly they could come up with more new ways to earn xp), making it feel much more like more of the same.
In the end, wow is a great game, and ill still play for many years to come I am sure (in some capacity). Ill say again what I said before, "Sad to see a few people on this forum who still look down on WoW players, we get enough of that from our IRL friends". It is imo not anybodies place to tell them what they should and shouldn't enjoy :)
WoW gets a bad rap, and I think it deserves a good portion of that. But while it may not be the demon we make it out to be, it is not the best out there. That consumers keep going back to it is embarrassing. When people find out I game the first question they ask is do I play WoW..like f**k no! I don't play that crap. I've been gaming for over 25 years! And that is what they ask me?!
****..this game needs to stop using Viagra and just go away.
STOP buying the updates..have you no self-respect?! It is more of the same, a few Pandas and re-hashed dungeons does not change this!