#252 – The Instance: Mostly in China

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Dills is in Vegas, but that did not stop us from chatting it up about WoW, even on Skyrim day.

Big News of the Week
WoW subscriber numbers down to 10.3 million players. During today’s Activision Blizzard investor call, it was announced that WoW has a total of 10.3 million players. This is down from the 11.4 million subscribers announced in March 2011. That means that 1.1 million players no longer play the game, a decline of about 10%.

In the call, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said that the majority of the subscriber loss happened in the east. There was no mention of specific subscriber numbers in the United States. Blizzard also declined to provide a subscriber forecast.

-Most of the subscriptions were lost in China.
-There is normally an increase in subscriptions around December.
-The decreased profit came from all of the games in development and no launches occurring.
-There will be at least two major releases next year.

Patch 4.3 now available on the Background Downloader. In an effort to save my PM box from imploding, I had to do a breaking news to tell everyone that the Patch 4.3.0 is now available on the background downloader for both EU and US players.

It doesn’t actually mean much, it just means that we reached the point where Blizzard is comfortable enough to release most of the static assets to the live client while they finish polishing the PTR one. There was no release candidate build on the test realms and I don’t really see the patch happening right now, you can all calm down.

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Some Q and A is just what the doctor ordered (bits from the Class Design & Balance Q&A). Plus, Patch 4.3 – The New Darkmoon Faire is on Test Realms!

Drop of the Week
Get your replica wardrobe on! The very first class armor sets from the old level 60 5-man dungeons are back in the game, or at least replicas of them are back and you can buy them for Transmogrification purposes!

Special thanks to our sponsors this week: Squarespace (use code WOW6), Audible.com, Doghouse Systems, Rage Quit Relief, and Typefrag.com.

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21 thoughts on “#252 – The Instance: Mostly in China”

  2. Hey I was too mean to Tupster before – now he is self-conscious about his effeminate love for cute viscous pokemam pet battles – sorry about that – hey if it is any consolation I will try to battle with my worg pup- my fav pet. But, I will scream like a girl if my poor little puppy gets a nose bleed. I don’t care if he tears all the straw out of your magic brooms brush!

    Anyhow I think warriors are dumbed down to be stupid now – they are taking out intercept – it se to be cool when I would battle stance charge – then later macro switch to berserker and intercept split second later – now it is just boring – Execute use to be a fun final spam fest – now it is an attack you can miss and maybe still do good dps – I am so mad they made colossal smash MORE important then Mortal strike or EVEN EXECUTE – so dumb.

    A 5 pet attack at once will make me dump all my 5 pets and just tame 5 monkeys – then when I hit = for the Herd of Angry Animal Attack – yes I will use it and send in FIVE screaming raging and insane Monkeys to Beat down my hapless overcome foe.

    I may have to reup my subscription soon if the patch comes out the end of November – I still can realm transfer and change to a human to smack your guild abut if you want too – the reason I do not subscribe for a year is NOT about money – and more to do with my playing the game too much (I try to only play on weekends but often end up playing after I check emails at home…)

    The downturn in # for the game could be because of the economy too- not everyone is a wealthy elite like me.

  3. greeting guys, im a player from china. I also have character on US server ,I think i know something happening on CN server.
    Due to launch of WLK was way too late(2010.8.24), many players created accounts on Taiwan server.So majority of tw server are same person used to play on CN server.

    The payment is quite different here.Here we dont need to buy CDKEYs. We can play as long as we pay for the time.You fill in forms, get an account, buy time, then you can log . Price is 30RMB(about $4.7)/4000min and no card for full month on CN and 90RMB for full month on TW. So on CN server I log into, time is consumed. I be offline, i lose nothing. So if i dont have time to play , i wont worry about money going away. Since its so cheap to create an account, many of us have 2 or 3 or even more accounts. So if im too busy working on one and drop another, or i want to be online 24hour and drop CN accounts, i think thats a loss calculated.

    But mostly i think the economic matters. Most wow players are between 18 and 30. Many of us graduated from college, get married, have baby. A grow-up man cant just sit there and dont care. We spend most time making a living. As economic is not in good shape and if you didnt attend famous college or dont have some spells special(such as me), its really hard to find a job, let alone ones good enough providing you regular spare time to log online.The joy of world of warcraft lies in permanent raid and PVP activites. So i quit because i dont really have enough time. I love world of warcraft and im eager to be online 24hours, but before that, i should make money to pay for month time.

    Hope everything will be going fine

  5. Why do you guys keep touching on TOR? You’ve made your feelings abundantly clear; you’re not that impressed with the game. Okay, we get it. There’s lots of us that do love what TOR’s doing and think it’s rather nifty. Just let it go, eh?

  6. @kenny – Couple quick bits regarding your comments. I cant wait to play TOR. As stoked for that game as I ever was before WoW was released. 2nd of all, I am glad to have T on the show, and keeping my head out of the clouds a bit on that game. I hope it’s as awesome as everyone hopes it is, but how does having a dissenting voice on the show have any impact on you liking TOR or not? Don’t look now, but yer bias is showing. :)

    Secondly, talking about TOR on a wow show is not only relavent, but crucial to the future of MMO’s, wow’s place in it, and TOR’s success will be a really interesting factor in the years to come. Not talking about it would be weird,

    Like I told my kids when they were little, “closing your eyes does not mean your not there.”

  7. @Scott

    Haha, well you got me there. I am a tad bit biased when it comes to TOR and it shows. As for your expectations of the game, if you haven’t gotten into beta yet … you won’t be disappointed my friend. Is there any chance of getting a TOR show on the Frogpants Network? If you’re looking at acquiring a show, I *HIGHLY* suggest you look at Sunny’ Diner. It’s a smart, laid-back little show run by a trial attorney.

    http://sunnysdiner.podbean.com/

  8. Yay me! I never win anything! Thanks for advertising that facebook contast at doghouse!

    can’t believe i won… hehe

  10. Pingback: Weekly Podcast Roundup: Nov. 7-13, 2011 | gQuit's WoWPress

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  13. @kenny – It’s all good, and yes, I have also partaken in the beta, and I’m very impressed. Excited for launch day, and praying to Zeus for a smooth one at that.

    ToR show on the network? Well, you will just have to wait and see I guess. :)

  14. First of all, you guys are great. Ive been listening to your podcast since BC and I hope this gig never goes away for you. Its sounds like you have a lot of fun doing it.

    Why I am sending this is that when you all mentioned the new hunter ability that was being looked at for MoP I got goose bumps. Five (5) pets at once…nice. Check out the link below for a post I put up on the forums in April. Sounds eerily similar to the new hunter ability…”Jumanji” is on the way. /fingers crossed for “Uziel’s Bane” ;)

    http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2416192590

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