Four years ago it took the world by storm, and in a matter of days the saga continues in Wrath of the Lich King. World of Warcraft is a big deal, so what kind of sales numbers can we expect from the expansion in the first month?

The number-crunchers from Activision Blizzard are predicting five million. Let’s see, the official active subscription count was last at eleven million. If those sales numbers are achieved it will be staggering, perhaps record breaking. In retrospect nearly 2.4 million copies of the Burning Crusade were sold in the 24 hour launch window and 3.5 million at the end of its first month.

Read full article by Matt Warner

Of those 11 million subscribers there are several million based in Asia. They won't be buying the exp on release. I really don't think a lot of the older players are necessarily in a rush either, a lot of the people I've been speaking to are going to wait a couple of weeks to avoid the crowded starting areas and queues, etc.

P.S. Use more punctuation, some of those sentences really need a "," or ";" to break them up. ;D

Wow..

This is gonna hurt war hammer alot !

Actually no, not really.

People will be like ZOMG NEW SPELLS AND TALENTS ZOMFG, they hit 80 and go, hang on this is the same as level 70 just with new spells and talents with arena still being broken and dominated by Druids Warriors/Rogues.

Will not last long until people quit WoW or move along.

Me and my friend where getting bored of WoW, then 3.0 come out and hello Achievements, that's what made us stay in the game.

Yeah, my friend and I are feeling the same way right now. I actually planned on quitting MMOs for good when wotlk came around, but the game's been growing on me since 3.0 was released... I finally decided to order it early this morning .

I play both, and I can say without a doubt that unless they have severely changed questing in WotLK I won't be playing much, just grinding instances to get to 80. Time will tell if I bother to try end game again.

Err out of 20 people that I knew that went from WoW to WAR 15 have gone back to WoW already. As people are leveling they realize exactly what you said but about WAR, it is just the same as WoW just I have to start all over again. I have my 5 lvl 70's with 375 in most professions and now to go to a game almost exactly like WoW and start over? It takes a few weeks to realize just how extremely similar the games are, just a couple of features are different and WoW is polished and you already have so many hours invested in it.

Personally I am just so tried of level based mmo's that i don't play either anymore and so I am playing the amazing Wurm Online until Darkfall is released. Finally a serious mmo that does things differently.

Wotlk will hurt Warhammer and big time, it will pretty much return all the old WoW players to WoW and Warhammer will be left with about 200-300k and thats the numbers Warhammer will be able to hold for any amount of time.

They're not in the same guild are they (or mostly in the same guild)?

I'm hoping DF turns out good as well.

But.. there's a couple of things that make me wonder how good a gameplay it'll offer for Aussies. Twitch-based fps-LIKE gameplay with servers which will initially be in Europe. They're planning on getting some in the US but even then I don't imagine that Aussies will be able to play competitively.

There's this misconception that a MMO with the most subscribers is instantly more fun than one with less. Not so.

Another one is the expectation that any new MMO should somehow release with as much content and bug-free state as an MMO that's been around for 4 years. Impossible. WoW was buggy as on release. Servers dropping like flies, loot lag, rubber-banding mobs, bugged boss fights, the list goes on. Now that Blizzard have had 4 years to sort all this out a lot of people have forgotten the rocky start it had.

yawn.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/morhaime-warhammer-and-conan-subscribers-returning-to-warcraft
+ loldarkfall.

I play both and damn, potentially - Warhammer is better in the long run. WoW is way too polished to have any core-game complaints. People like finished-looking products with mechanics that WORK. Warhammer on the other hand, although unfair to say its not finished - doesn't remove the fact that being frustrated with game mechanics being broken really turns off players EASY.

WoW can pretty much be summarized;

Arena
- Rating System
- Class balance/fotm
- Oceanic lag ftl (whats that? lowerping 8$ per month just to be competetive?)

BG
- Honor Grind
- Arena-geared ppl vs casual non-arena ppl

Raid 10man
- Great!
Raid 25man
- Time vs Skill vs Numbers vs Attendance vs Class makeup vs Spec

Warhammer

Open RvR
- Current reward for Open RvR is lacking
- Zerg is problematic

Scenario/BG
- Honor(Renown) Grind

Raid PvE
- Easy


Im playing both, and I'm definitely going to play WOTLK when it comes out then hit 80 but stick to 10mans mostly. Warhammer when WoW gets boring (again).

I just went out and purchased the WOW Battlechest which has WOW and The Burning Crusade in it for $39.00 from GAME. Shall I fall to the power of WOW...?