Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsBlizzard giving StarCraft 2 players 30 days of WoW
by Mathew McCurley 
Apr 18th 2011 at 10:00PM
Battle.net is a great asset to Blizzard, as it allows the company to easily facilitate subscriptions from all its games and create potential customers to its other games through the common account. Giving away WoW subscriptions is an easy and practically costless move that might get even more people hooked. If you know any StarCraft 2 players who haven't set foot in Azeroth yet, maybe it's time that they gave the game a whirl.
WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Bossy Apr 19th 2011 3:12AM
LOL.
Dudes who even compare the 7% copycat with the original must really go to therapy. :))
As for warcraft realms stats (too small samples to cover all servers), they show actually an INCREASE over the last month.
Player log ins (for what they are worth) are around the same size as April 10 and October at the moment. Meaning the already old bored people came in to Cata and just left.
Population is now on par with 12 and 6 months ago, which is quite healthy. In fact a lot more heatlier than a brand new game who lost 35% of its players already and had to offer free play for full weekends in ... its launching period. LOL
--On topic.
Expect to see this coming from Blizzard in the future/
BAttle Net will be used to address that HUGE player base of Blizzard and promote playing all their games.
I expect an ALL IN package when D3 and their new MMO launch.
ONE SUBSCRIPTION to rule them all./
Drakkenfyre Apr 19th 2011 8:35AM
Diablo 3 won't be subscription based.
Play107 Apr 19th 2011 4:42AM
RIFT is the reason!
razion Apr 19th 2011 7:50AM
The sarcasm is strong with this one.
mazca13 Apr 19th 2011 5:26AM
I'm not sure why people feel the need to attribute this to RIFT, or the failure of Cataclysm, or any particular specific problem. Even if WoW's subscriptions were at an all time high, there's no reason Blizzard wouldn't take the opportunity to get EVEN MORE subscriptions by using their substantial number of SC2 users. Successful businesses don't wait til they start losing customers to start angling for new ones.
Drakkenfyre Apr 19th 2011 5:47AM
Because some people are stupid, and see the world in one way. Success or failure, no matter what. If a company tries getting new customers, OH NO IT'S A FAILURE. If they don't. they must be successful, and don't need it.
It's like if Microsoft put the XBox360 on sale. "Oh, no. They must be afraid of (console). They're losing people to (console)."
Aceman67 Apr 19th 2011 6:33AM
Addons aren't necessary to play an MMO. The only reason you need addons to play WoW Well (I said to play it well, not to play it at all), is that blizz made it complicated, and it continues to be come complicated as blizz adjusts to the skill set of the average and elite players, who all use addons regularly.
Now, back to what I was saying: I play STO in the endgame. I regularly run the STF missions and let me tell you, they are unforgiving as hell if everyone isn't a well coordinated SWAT team. Could addons make this a bit easier? I'm pretty sure it would, I know I would love a DBM style addon that would tell me when Probes are coming during the first space portion of khitomer accord. Or some kind of equipment manager addon that allows us to swap out weapon/component sets quickly.
We've all been spoiled by addons to the point where we can't play with out them, I for one can't play wow with out changing the entire UI (which is fugly), but Addons are not needed to play.
Angus Apr 19th 2011 7:23AM
Great, now I am going to lose to PVP to some guy in Korea somehow able to do over 9000 actions per minute...
razion Apr 19th 2011 7:52AM
This is why we have the GCD. :/
nieboh Apr 19th 2011 7:54AM
This has what to do with what?
Drakkenfyre Apr 19th 2011 8:41AM
He's saying some Korean who plays StarCraft 2 will kick his ass since
they are stereotyped (and rightfully so) as being very skilled at
StarCraft, and performing hundreds of actions per minute, which is one
of the measurements of skill in the game. (When used correctly, and
not just spamming commands to inflate it.)
StarCraft was almost a national sport in Korea. They had TV channels
dedicated to it. It was essentially you reached the age of playing
games, you were issued a copy of StarCraft. Of course their servers
are different from our's, but he's just joking.
Hilus Apr 19th 2011 11:31AM
I bet they are going to do the same with Diablo III...
IGS Apr 19th 2011 3:31PM
Just look at traffic has changed to Worldofwarcraft.com on the Alexa site. Their traffic has dropped 86% since Cata release....Hello, Wow is dying and fast!
Lemons Apr 19th 2011 4:52PM
Maybe that's because instead of obsessively checking the site for updates on the new release people are actually playing the game? I'm guessing there is always an uptick during a new expansion release and a drop afterwards. That's only natural.
Lorne Apr 22nd 2011 7:18PM
I currently don't have an active script to WoW atm, because I'm bored with it. I can't raid anything more than the occasional Baradin Hold because of time constraints and a constantly shifting work schedule with different start times and different days off practically every week. And I don't do arenas or rated BG's because I *despise* pvp. As a result, I've progressed my main toon as far as I can get them without raiding, aaaaaand... Im done until 4.1, possibly even 4.2. I think a lot of people are experiencing this as well, since raids are absolutely not puggable with any degree or reasonable chance of success, people are grinding out their reps, getting some decent gear, some purples from rep and then... quitting... because theres nothing else to do.