New efforts!

[General Sherman]

Keeping mind that WoW is WAAAAYY less fun than CoX, they have to spend loads of cash on adverts.

No argument there. However you have to admit, the amount of subscribers seems to be directly proportional to the size of the advertising budget.

[JanessaVR]

No argument there. However you have to admit, the amount of subscribers seems to be directly proportional to the size of the advertising budget.

Actually, I know of one person here, a few years back, who posted some screenshots they made of CoH with the generic store signs in-game swapped out for real-world companies.  I thought it looked kind of neat, actually.

[FloatingFatMan]

Actually, I know of one person here, a few years back, who posted some screenshots they made of CoH with the generic store signs in-game swapped out for real-world companies.  I thought it looked kind of neat, actually.

They did tinker at one point with having real world advertising on the in-game billboards... Never actually came to anything though... In fact, I don't recall ever once actually seeing a real ad in the game, despite them spending ages developing the technology for it...

[Dr. Bad Guy]

They did tinker at one point with having real world advertising on the in-game billboards... Never actually came to anything though... In fact, I don't recall ever once actually seeing a real ad in the game, despite them spending ages developing the technology for it...

Thought I remembered one that they tried. A sports something, something.  Getting geriatric here, old timers disease.

[duane]

Thought I remembered one that they tried. A sports something, something.  Getting geriatric here, old timers disease.

I want to say there was a Nike advertisement that ran.

The client also had an ability to hide that advertising some where.

Naturally on the forums a small and very vocal group cried butthurt and in the end I think in-game advertising quietly went away.

[Power Gamer]

No argument there. However you have to admit, the amount of subscribers seems to be directly proportional to the size of the advertising budget.

Without a doubt. And what that demonstrates is that WoW is a fad that gets its mojo from the top (corp execs) down, whereas CoX was a trend that got it mojo from the bottom (players) up. IMO :)

[hejtmane]

Without a doubt. And what that demonstrates is that WoW is a fad that gets its mojo from the top (corp execs) down, whereas CoX was a trend that got it mojo from the bottom (players) up. IMO :)

To be fair Blizzard also had the hype of the companies past success in Diablo, Starcraft, Diablo II and WOW RTS and they did put out what appears to be a solid product (never played it myself) I left DAOC for a different game before landing in COH

[Rayderoth]

No argument there. However you have to admit, the amount of subscribers seems to be directly proportional to the size of the advertising budget.

WoW has what I like to call the... er... "WoW effect."

A lot of people started playing WoW because they knew someone who played WoW and wanted to get in on all this "memorperger" business.

Player A played WoW since launch. Player B plays because they wanted to play with Player A. Player C statted because of the free trial in the Starcraft Battlechest, but continued because they found out that their friend Player D plays. Player D started because they wanted to join A and B in their game. Etc.

Basically, WoW was a lot of people's first MMO. Sadly, it also means that a lot of people never tried anything else in the MMO market. Why woild they? All of their friends play WoW, so any incentive to play another MMO loses out to that fact."

[Power Gamer]

Understand what you are saying hejtmane.

I have played WoW and found it dull. I wanted to find it engaging, I really did.
My brother was a master of a LARGE guild, and since we are quite a distance apart it was one way we could still game together.

I believe the reason it did not stick with me is that I found WoW gameplay to be very mechanical, unimaginative. Don't get me started on the naming restrictions. BLECH.

Also, it SEEMED less a thinking mans game and more of a lead-you-around-by-the-proboscus form.

I found the community to be way less helpful, friendly or stimulating than CoX.

D&D Online is much better, and I don't play it anymore either.

These are my reasons. Obviously others differ. In the end while I may never again play CoX (assuming it remains dormant), I will NEVER play WoW again, no matter how popular it has become or how much money they throw at adverts.

And just a side note, my brother after years of WoW with a highly successful guild, quit playing. The community and the game has in his opinion changed for the worse.

[hejtmane]

Understand what you are saying hejtmane.

I have played WoW and found it dull. I wanted to find it engaging, I really did.
My brother was a master of a LARGE guild, and since we are quite a distance apart it was one way we could still game together.

I believe the reason it did not stick with me is that I found WoW gameplay to be very mechanical, unimaginative. Don't get me started on the naming restrictions. BLECH.

Also, it SEEMED less a thinking mans game and more of a lead-you-around-by-the-proboscus form.

I found the community to be way less helpful, friendly or stimulating than CoX.

D&D Online is much better, and I don't play it anymore either.

These are my reasons. Obviously others differ. In the end while I may never again play CoX (assuming it remains dormant), I will NEVER play WoW again, no matter how popular it has become or how much money they throw at adverts.

And just a side note, my brother after years of WoW with a highly successful guild, quit playing. The community and the game has in his opinion changed for the worse.

I am an oldschool MMO I go back to UO which was a sandbox game hell i caused a patch (rule change in that game); DAOC for many years when I left DAOC I skipped WOW it seemed so restrictive so I went to Horizons great concept (they had multi classing players build the gear harvest stuff etc)  flopped because of game engine and technical reasons and I ended up in COX eventually. I tried did play DDO tried several other MMO's had friends in COH which is why I tried it out and got hooked

[Ironwolf]

Hey @Ironwolf your first name on that handle wouldn't be Bjardis would it? I thought I saw that you were in the sca.

Sir Michael Au Cluin of House Ironwolf at your service: http://chivalry.midrealm.org/peer_new.php?input=152

In my new armor: https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10152528222904084&set=t.100000561503785&type=3&theater

Middle Kingdom.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

They did tinker at one point with having real world advertising on the in-game billboards... Never actually came to anything though... In fact, I don't recall ever once actually seeing a real ad in the game, despite them spending ages developing the technology for it...

T-Mobile Tony Hawk Sidekick. I remember it quite well, I thought it was pretty cool myself.
The adverts in game, not the phone.

[FloatingFatMan]

T-Mobile Tony Hawk Sidekick. I remember it quite well, I thought it was pretty cool myself.
The adverts in game, not the phone.

I guess they never made it over to the EU servers, then.

Shame really.  It would have added a little realism to the city, and didn't hurt anything.... And for the whaambulance chasers, it was easy to turn it off.

[KennonGL]

T-Mobile Tony Hawk Sidekick. I remember it quite well, I thought it was pretty cool myself.
The adverts in game, not the phone.

There was that shoe one right at the start too, if I remember rightly.

I think it was supposed to be associated to some sports player, but since I've never
really cared about or followed professional sports, I never quite "got" the reference.

I'm not sure if that was a real ad or just a "test" placeholder though.

[KennonGL]

Oh and to this day, I still want my pizza "made fresh by made men".

[dwturducken]

I would have to dig around, because the in-game advertising had a LOT of traction around here as the Plan Z discussion was still gestating. I seem to recall the ads being recalled only on the EU/UK servers, for some Vin Diesel movie that was about to come out (probably a Riddick movie). I started sometime in I13, though, so I can't speak to what had been on the US servers in the beginning.

[Rigo42]

I also played wow for a while and quit about a little ago to hop into archeage.

I feel what drew me into wow many years ago was the exploration part, you used to have to run your character everywhere, everything seemed so vast and new, areas remained unexplored.

But since they introduced flying mounts that has gone away, it doesn't feel much like a adventure anymore.

[dwturducken]

I'm not sure if running speed increases as you level, the way mount speed does, but someone (I saw it as an "info-pic" on Cracked.com, recently) determined that it takes about an hour and a half to run from one end of one of the continents to the other. Taking the run requirement for the US Navy's annual physical readiness test at a mile in 10 minutes and thirty seconds (for a male under 30), that's a distance of about 6 miles. The vastness was an illusion. Hell, Daggerfall's "world" was twice the size of the British Isles, in area. That game is in the neighborhood of 20 years old!

[Pherdnut]

As long as real ads didn't completely usurp hilarious billboards, it wouldn't bother me.

[Last Known Hero]

I haven't been able to follow for a few weeks and cant catch up on reading... whats going on as far as news?