Article Detail - World of Warcraft News

World of Warcraft Gives New Meaning to Expansion

Posted Aug 31, 2006 at 03:35PM by Anna S. Listed in: News Tags: Blizzard, DFC Intelligence, David Cole, expansion pack

Undoubtedly one of the biggest MMORPG in the entire planet as speculated by David Cole of DFC Intelligence. But are you ready for this? World of Warcraft is bound to get bigger as Blizzard bigwig Paul Sams states in an interview with Technology Guardian.

First thing that comes to mind when someone says that WoW is going to get even bigger is its first expansion pack The Burning Crusade, however, that is only the tip of the iceberg. Since Blizzard aims to make games that are "easy to learn but hard to master" and they have somehow managed to maintain a certain amount of simplicity in WoW's complicated gameplay, new players are not daunted to try the game and at the same time keeping hardcore gamers hooked.

Word of mouth has also been a major factor in Wow's "expansion." "Girlfriends and wives are playing with their partners and telling their friends about it. Globally, around 10% of WoW players are women whereas historically for this genre it was around 2%," Sams says. He thinks that this rapid growth in female players can be traced back to a husband or boyfriend playing the game.

Unlike other games, the adventure doesn't end when a player hits the level cap. "The game is different depending on what race, class or faction you choose. I don't see this as being game over when you get to the level cap. There are a lot of different play styles and experiences to try."

As previously mentioned, getting bigger means expanding, so when asked about The Burning Crusade he gladly gave a lot of information on the pack. "Players will now be able to grow their characters up to level 70. And there are new races, new areas and flying mounts plus a host of other features that will excite Warcraft fans. We are going to continue growing the content when Burning Crusade is released. The plan is to release an expansion pack every year as well as expanding the content in the game. But you don't have to upgrade to carry on enjoying the game, and there are no plans to raise subscription costs."

[Via technology guardian] Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Digg It!

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by Storm (Unregistered) - 2006-08-31

» Now only..

They'll only suceed if they can finally balance out PvP and stop giving in to all the nerfs of Hunters because they suck enough already, especially since there's no hunter equipment in Naxx besides 1 ring and a new barb that'll add 4 agil, (whoopie). Not to mention continuing to over power warlocks. Maybe they'll finally remove seduction or make the cooldown LONGER than the actual time it's casted,

by Max F. (QJ. NET Staff) - 2006-08-31

Storm, you have a good point, but issues like that tend to go unheard by the majority of players who are really quite casual about their gaming approach: you know, the majority of casual gamers who spend hours just running around and doing newbie kind of things. It's really strange when people you think don't even know how to use a mouse declare they enjoy playing WoW: I guess that's a testament to its success?

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by ownerer (Unregistered) - 2006-08-31

» asdf

wow is lame......thats all i got to say about that

by Razak (Unregistered) - 2006-09-01

» Female percentage

I'd like to know where Sams is getting his numbers on female gamers. They seem more than a little off. It has been previously widely reported by a number of sources that the female MMO player makes up about 35% of the population. Yet he says most games get 2%. What does he mean by most games?

by ryan (Unregistered) - 2006-09-01

» wow rules

i think that storm is totally right becouse the hunter needs to get more dps out with out dying so fast and we realy neeeeeed more items for hunters

by Gautama (Unregistered) - 2006-09-01

» Hunters get bad rap

Most new players are hunter and have no idea how to play them. Other players, who play hunters very well, are left to do nothing but Autoshot a higher levels, because hunter gears and talents suck.

how can you make a hunter class that can't trap or hold a mob for more than a few seconds. Absurd.

Also, they need to fix pets to be more usefull in instances and Riad battles, because autoshot gets boring really fast.

Oh, and not to mention the huge lack of hunter items, which Warrioars and Rogue roll on anyway. How about hunter specific items? I quit my 60 hunter months ago because it is sooooo boring.

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