And for those, that are complaining about the monthly fees, it's very simple... DON'T BUY IT. For the rest of us, me included, we'll pony up the $50 (probably $40 if you buy it this weekend), and continue the $15 monthly fee. Some people don't understand that MMORPG are like bars and clubs. You don't go to bars and clubs for the booze or the music (afterall you can get all that stuff at home for a heck of a lot cheaper), you go for the people. I play MMORPG's for the human interaction. If I wanted to play just a regular RPG by myself, then I'd just play ToEE or Morrowind. But it's nice to play with or against other human beings. It adds a whole new dimension to the game.
For the $15 monthly, its probably the most bang for the buck. I figure that I get in 100/month (conservative estimate, I'm an addict). $15.00/100hrs = 15 cents / hour. Compare that with many other activities that we do. Movies - $10 each for 2 hrs = $5/hr. Most normal games - $50 for 20 - 40 hrs = $2.5 to $1.25/hr. Smoking - $5 a pack (1 cig = 10 min) for 3.33 hrs = $1.50/hr.
I'm not trying to convince people to go out and buy a MMORPG, I'm just showing those people how we think.
EVERYONE is out to make money. How much money, THEY make is dependent upon how much value they give to US. If they don't give much value, they won't make much money. Simple. Look at Saga of Ryzom. This game sucks, and only after a couple months after release, they are offering free trials. Usually MMORPG's offer free trials, after a year or two when the game starts getting old.
I've played Wow both Stress Tests and open Beta, and Blizzard is VERY Good at meeting the players needs. They support Cosmos ( a third party app, that enhances the interface). During the first stress test, 100k people signed up. They had too many servers in beta (LOL) and weren't getting the data they needed, so they moved everybody to only a couple servers. They also extended the stress by about a week. I still didn't see any lag. I was in it for the second stress test. Still no lag. I didn't see lag until open beta, when HALF A MILLION accounts were created. Boy did I see lag. But Blizzard implemented a number cap to each server as a stop gap measurement, while they rapidly added additional servers. I think they wound up adding an additional 20 servers to the ones they already had. This allowed players that were in a good level of playability. If you logged on and were on a waiting list for a particular server, then you could easily change servers to one that wasn't and play another character. Which I did on a number of occasions.
When they released WoW to retail, it was ready to be released. Not like Lineage 2, SoR, or EQ2 (from what I heard).
I was at the midnight release of WoW at Fry's in Fountain Valley (LOL did I mention, I was an addict), and got to meet the dev's. I guy next to me, asked one of the dev's how they felt now that the game was released and they had some time off. The dev smiled at him and told him "What time off?" Apparently, they are all going right back in after Thanksgiving, to work on any bugs that pop up and work on adding content.
From these actions, I have no problems in forking over $50 for the game (actually it was $80 for the collectors edition. Did I mention I was an ADDICT), and $15 a month. Actually I'm getting the 3 month sub so it's cheaper.
WoW is not as group oriented as EQ2. But you still have to group if you want to do the "Elite" quests, which is where you get all the really good gear. The graphics aren't as good right now, as EQ2, but the lag in the cities is virtually non-existant. And definitely not to the point that it's unplayable.
Well there's my two cents.