This Week In MMO 114: Reviews Suck

Written by: Gary Gannon (@garygannon) | September 28, 2012 5:30 pm

42 Comments

This Week In MMO covers the weeks top MMORPG related news. Jason Winter joins Gary Gannon, Mike B, and Hillary aka Pokket this week to weigh in.

On this weeks show:

Blizzard’s Mists Of Pandaria Launches With Disappointing Sales?
DUST514 Release Date?
Do MMO Reviews Suck?
DAYZ Update
And More!

Guild Wars 2

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Continuation of the living story and many changes to WvW.Read more »

Comment
45:20

World of Warcraft

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

Legendary is joined by Blizzard's Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and Brian Holinka for a live video interview!Read more »

19 comments
1:00:49

MMO News

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

WildStar details finally coming out!Read more »

22 comments

Christopher Duarte

Wouldnt be surprised if it under 9 million
madecin1234

In Cata, we were 10 folks playing. No one of us will buy MOP. I would say under 8 millions.
http://www.facebook.com/elias.rowan Elias Rowan

RE: DayZ – No one is going to be able to copy cat DayZ. They will try and they will claim to be doing it better (as The WarZ is trying) but they will fail on the critical points. They don’t actually understand what it is about DayZ that makes it what it is. So what you’ll end up with is just another FPS – with some zombies. That is not what DayZ is.
Where the MOD is at this point is a sort of chill point. Scripting has ruined play for many players. Private hives are now starting to do a good job of bringing back the DayZ that players fell in love with but even there it is hit miss – as again, many of these private server hosts don’t actually get what it is about DayZ that made it so hugely loved and fill their servers with crazy amounts of vehicles and altered loot tables.
So, most of us know that the standalone is on it’s way and that we don’t have long to wait. Myself, I play occasionally still – mostly on private servers to avoid scripters but mainly I am content to wait for the game and am biding my time with other games while I wait. Am I any less of a freak about DayZ? Hell no. I am just very aware the MOD has hit its ceiling.

The Hunger GameZ will continue and will be a regular event. QnGaming is working with Rocket himself on the project, except the games have been re-titled. It is now called The Survivor GameZ and the next one is scheduled for October 20th.
http://twitter.com/ProTrolly ProTrolly

I think mist of pandaria well be under 5.5 million they might has new lands and dungeons but nothing really new than they done before pet battles is nice but you soon get bored with it quickly. Why guild wars 2 is doing so well is world v world, events, graphics combat more real.
http://twitter.com/JerryWheatfield Jerry Wheatfield

Loving the Firefall shirt
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=613400106 Francois Brisson

For the first day sales of an expansion every expansion has beat the last one. TBC sold 2.4 million on day 1 TLK sold 2.8 million and cata sold 3.3 million. And now the record is 3.5 million from Diablo 3. I don’t think MoP will continue this trend because of mass ignorance. I do think they’ll sell more digitally then in stores tho, I don’t know anyone that baught it in stores in my guild or on my real ID.
http://twitter.com/j0nnara Jonnara

Out of all my friends from wow, old guild mates and contacts from real ID. only 2 people bought MoP and went back to WoW. I say under.
Revanhavoc

Winter you know I love your wit but man I’m going to have to donate something extra this month so you can get a web cam with an image that doesn’t look like a polaroid!

Agree with Mike B that all games compete with one another, thus Boaderlands 2 can take players from MMO’s and all games should be compared to one another regardless of genre.

(Oh God don’t start a GW2 vs WoW fight, Revan…)

What? No…But I’ll say under 9 million sales.

Last thing I’ll say is about reviewers. Reviews are demanded by consumers. It’s important, and it’s as simple as that for me. Then again, I can take an opinion with a grain of salt… Unless it’s the Gannonator’s opinion, then it’s scripture. Like how he said Prometheus sucked. God Prometheus sucked…
tommythepower

Something tells me that now when wow(garbage) is losing so many subs blizzard will up Titan production in every way.And blizzard will understand now after fail mop.Have high hopes for titan like most do i belive.
http://twitter.com/Hoigwai Hoigwai

Honestly, I think they will at least meet cata numbers. In this case people also knew they would not need to load anything with the digital purchase.
Fluffenstuffen

WoW should go F2P, then I might pick up MoP.
Krzysztof Kotarba

blizz says they have 10 mil active subs… Where are all of them 700k copies or more is just fragment of whole.

Master PC race is up in space behind desk, console meat on battlefields… seems legit.
End of 2012 is packed with HUGE sandbox games, WoW and GW2 will lose. WoW will lose more.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kyle-Eggers/100000868131517 Kyle Eggers

I really think that WoW will be under 9 million on the next quarterly report. Also on Amazons sit MoP collectors was #1 for four days and not EVE Inferno is followed by GW2 then Sleeping Dogs, FiFA Sorror, at five Borderlands 2.at the most is the first week with digital include MoP will sell 1 to 1.2 million copies. Oh and my brother Loves EVE and is trying to get be to buy him a PS3 for Xmas so he can get dust. I go to five places for reviews on MMO/video games, GBTV, Massively, Zam, PC Gamer, and the customer reviews on Amazon.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kyle-Eggers/100000868131517 Kyle Eggers

I think that MoP will in the first week with digital sales hit 1 to 1.2 million copies sold. For most of this week the collectors MoP was #1 on Amazon and now it has fallen to sixth. The list goes, EVE Inferno ditgital, GW2 digital, Sleeping Dogs digital, Borderlands2 digital, then MoP Collectors, so i really think Blizzard only selling the digital copies of MOP through their site is hurting the sales. Amazon is the #1 retailer in the U.S.
For reviews I go GBTV, ZAM, Massively, PC Gamer, and the customer reviews on Amazon.
Ken G

Bought GW2 over Pandas yesterday after a 15 minute brain battle in the game aisle. My ‘first impression’ is that it’s really fun and graphically better, but if I’m honest I’ll probably get back into WoW when I need to scratch my endgame raiding itch.
TheHolgar

WoW: Under 9Million. Its goin slow but the boat is sinking.
MiZTiiX

its funny how biased pokket is to GW2. but GW2 has taken a big hit by wow. i think she’s just upset
- Alex Wallace
  
  gw2 was built to sustain hits like this in the mmorpg world…people will always be able to come back for free after they go see how fail mop is…btw mop isnt doing that well from the sound of it…looks like the powerhouse is slowly but surely getting weaker…also you sound like your biased to wow…maybe your jelly by the hit wow took from gw2
  - Jant0n
    
    >”gw2 was built to sustain hits like this in the mmorpg world”
        Is there any proof that GW2 has taken a major hit? I do agree though that the price model makes it easier to get back into than other games.
    
    >”see how fail mop is”
       I’m no longer playing WoW for my own reasons, but from what I can see MoP looks like a fairly good expansion; as long as they can release content fast enough to appease the majority of players.
    
    >”looks like the powerhouse is slowly but surely getting weaker”
        I agree. I still am flummoxed that they charge for all the expansions. I think this is a big part of them not being able to get enough new players to replace those leaving. As it is now it is far too large a barrier to entry for new players, even with the recent price reductions.
    
    >”also you sound like your biased to wow”
        Could not agree more!
    
    >”maybe your jelly by the hit wow took from gw2″
        I don’t think either are going to have drastic impacts on one another. The difference in price models as well as the different play style creates a fairly good space for the two to coexist. People can go and do content in WoW and when they have completed what they want play GW2 while waiting for the next patch to drop.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Hard to say with Guild Wars 2, it’s been about two week since I log into GW2 and haven’t purchased any gems, so I’m not really a income steam for Arenanet. I’m past the point were I would spend for extras in GW2. While I want to eventually log back in for WvW, the personal story was spoiled by the talk around the commercial and haven’t heard anything that really wow’s me about Orr.
    
    Really loved the 1-30 zones, but it sounds like alot of folks are just using crafting to push to 80.
    
    Most of my WoW guild purchased MoP, so I’m assuming they are off the market for purchasing GW2. I believe someone that purchased GW2 could easily go back to WoW, but someone that purchased Mist of Pandaria is unlikely to try GW2 for a couple of years. (This assumes MoP is as good as seems. I’m really enjoying it.) I would say the real over/under is how long does it take Guild Wars 2 to hit 6.5 million box sales so it matches the original Guild Wars.
    - Jant0n
      
      >”the personal story was spoiled by the talk around the commercial ”
          That really upset me and demotivated me to play the personal story. I wish they took two seconds to write “Warning: Potential Spoilers!”.
      
      >”I believe someone that purchased GW2 could easily go back to WoW, but someone that purchased Mist of Pandaria is unlikely to try GW2 for a couple of years.”
           I agree with you premise but disagree with you conclusion. I think they can compliment each other fairly well. When people who are playing GW2 want raid content, or anything else MoP has in endgame, they can play it for a while and if they get bored play some GW2. They are very different experiences and with the price models each has to offer it makes it easy to go back and forth.
      
      >”I would say the real over/under is how long does it take Guild Wars 2 to hit 6.5 million box sales so it matches the original Guild Wars.”
         That is an interesting question, though I believe the 6.1 million figure includes the additional campaigns as well (I could be wrong there though). Personally, I believe that GW2 will maintain a fairly good sized playerbase, but will be more of a niche title. Either way it will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few years.
      - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
        
        I agree you can play both. Before the launch of Mist of Pandaria, I would chat with my WoW guildies about Guild Wars 2 and praise the combat system and crafting.
        
        But now that the majority have purchased Mist and there is alot of gameplay in Mist of Pandaria. They would find it difficult purchasing another MMO and playing both.
        
        Personally, when SWTOR came out, it was easy. I could level in SWTOR and raid in WoW (Dragon Soul was all new and fresh).
        
        When Guild Wars 2 came out, I could level in GW2 and raid in WoW (helping my returning guildies gear up in Dragon Soul. sigh.)
        
        But now, there is so much content in Mist of Pandaria, I couldn’t imagine picking up a second MMO.
      - Jant0n
        
        >”But now, there is so much content in Mist of Pandaria, I couldn’t imagine picking up a second MMO.”
        There is a lot of good looking content in MoP; I don’t have first hand knowledge of the content, but from what I have seen it looks good. The point I was making though, is that the content will run out at some point and that some people might just pick up GW2 while they wait for the next patch. In that respect I believe they will compliment each other quite well.
- Jant0n
  
  >”its funny how biased pokket is to GW2″
      People can have opinions contrary to yours and not be biased. I don’t believe she is biased towards any one game in particular; from what I have seen she gives a fair analysis of the games she has/is playing.
  
  >”GW2 has taken a big hit by wow”
      Do you have any proof of this?
  
  >”i think she’s just upset”
      People can like multiple games at the same time and can even critique the games they like.
Alex Wallace

If wow went f2p i still wouldnt play…im so done with it…its time to move on…the community in wow is like scrolling through 4chan l2gw2
Jasongvh

xfire hours played is not looking good for wow which once used to perm hold 1st place from BC until beginning of cata. It’s currently 3rd on xfire with under 50% of what lol has. GW2 held rank 2 for 2-3 weeks and is currently 4th/5th.

I think it will be under 9 mil for Q3
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=613400106 Francois Brisson
  
  We’ll go with Raptr (get with the program Raptr > xfire) numbers as that’s what GB uses. One week after MoP release these are the numbers for the top 5 games in the last week’s games played on PC.
  
  1. World of Warcraft: 372,223 hrs
  2. Borderlands 2: 261,956 hrs
  3. League of Legends: 227,727 hrs
  4. Guild Wars 2: 132,910 hrs
  5. Torchlight 2: 84,032 hrs.
  
  Now I don’t think WoW will stay number 1 for infinity amount’s of time LoL might eventually get back ontop but it will prolly be those two games being number one and two unless a PC release get’s as much hype as borderland and it might break up for a week like borderlands did. Obviously these numbers are only a portion of the people playing, but that’s also helping other games beat WoW and LoL since they have millions of casual’s each that wouldn’t use such programs.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brandon-Evans/1603660859 Brandon Evans

WoW will have more players and make more bank then any other MMO on the market after 8 years and four expensions. So if WoW is doing “bad” then MMO’s are in trouble. Just sayin
- Deathstar2x
  
  It doesn’t necessarily have to follow that dichotomy. I would beware of using World of Warcraft to evaluate the entire MMO-scape.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=727587287 Blake Morris

i skip the netflix pitch every time SUCK IT! jk
http://www.facebook.com/miljan.stanojevic.503 Miljan Stanojevic

hmm I would love to se WoW in B2P, same as GW2…hmm and yea if MoP reach 7 milllions Blizzard should be happy, everything over 7 mil is woohooo!!!
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  No way, though I do think Blizzard should have gone free expansions with a monthly sub, similar to EVE.
http://www.facebook.com/rodiercz Vit Novotny

Anyone know what is intro song? name? thanks
ceewolf

I remember being a youngster and seeing the cover of warcraft 2 and I was like..”Dad look how stupid this game looks!! It’s a green monster wearing a bandana!!” And then my dad was like, “Son, this is one of the greatest games God put on this earth..”

Come to find out my Dad was right…..Pandas…I’m not sure how awesome they are…But I’ll never forget that day…So remember kids, you can’t review a game by it’s cover….
Josh Rosenvelt

My friend pointed out that wow only started losing subs when they made 10 and 25 man raiding equal, making the game more difficult and more easy has done nothing to bring players back to the game. I think it was blizzards biggest mistake by messing with large group raiding where these big guilds were the foundation of many realm communities.
- pandora005
  
  WoW started sucking when they gave Pallies to the Horde and Shammies to the Alliance AND they reduced the raid size from 40 to 25 … Just my personal opinion which many wont agree with, but they can have their own opinion. Oh and they started catering to PvP idiots and made classes more “the same” (mana burst for all caster classes for example).
pandora005

Some people have enough experience to judge and review a new game without getting to endgame. It isnt necessary to go that far just for a review and expectations and tastes are different anyways, so a review isnt that great of a help anyways.
Endgame in GW2 isnt raiding for example, so it is really new for everyone to discover what to do as “endgame”.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kris-Yeisley/554290488 Kris Yeisley

Chinese players don’t buy expansions or pay subscription fees.
http://profile.yahoo.com/KI7Q7KTG4XGQQ2NOM7N4IMFAIM Rae

Great Show Guys.
Alot to think about,
So many choices of what games to play right now.

as of this writing,(in order of time spent)

Borderlands 2 – getting the lion’s share of My playtime.
Firefall -waiting for the PVE Milestone.
Hawken -alpha-testing the big PVP map with no texture maps.
Guildwars 2 -dropped My Wow sub of 71/2 years because of it.
Planetside 2 -Waiting to see How business model evolves.
Path of Exile -no time to play it.

My hat goes off to those Here that write reviews,
I’d had an opportunity awhile back, to do it.

I decided that I like to play games more than write about them.
Doing both (to any great extent) is very difficult.

I bet some of You writers wish this planet had a 30 hour day.
http://www.facebook.com/jeanpierre.naranjo.52 JeanPierre Naranjo

I have a WoW sub and I also play GW2, I got to 90 last Friday and I’d like to raid but I find it very hard to pry myself away from GW2 WvW and stuff to go get geared out to do so. Needles to say I am not raid ready today for Vaults as I have been WvW in GW2 the past couple nights. The days need more hours!
jayremy

I think with Reviewing MMOs you have to segment them into multiple parts, multiple articles ranging from:
first impressions,
overall game mechanics,
content and combat,
art, design, UI, social features and lore,
PvE,
PvP,
late game.

Not to these exact categories but something very similar. Then have the write up articles ready and in sequence as soon as reasonably possible. Just see it as a collective works, that will eventually feel like a complete one – the work in progress, approach. Maybe if even it requires multiple authors for different portions.
jayremy

WoW hasn’t been something I could get back into once I quit with Cata (and I quit before Cata as well, played for a month into Cata only). The game really tries my patience, questing, grinding, dungeons, waiting for groups, traveling, character management, the repetitive combat structure and a heavy number based, unrealistic combat feeling. I am just more inclined to action games, or something that gives you more control or has a fresh new experience. WoW has required upon me as a player to kill too much time with especially within each game session to get any satisfactory feeling of progression. The lore has also no longer felt intriguing as it used to which was once a major hold to me.

This Week In MMO 114: Reviews Suck

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

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