An observant reader noticed the well-timed delivery of my recent World of Warcraft "Cheaters Survey" here. =]

The thing is, Blizzard is very predictable in regards to their ban waves.

They've been collecting user details for months, but wait until a certain time before banning all players at once. Banning still occurs on a regular monthly basis, mind you, but those are for high visibility infractions (e.g. botting that's noticeable by other players.) They want to keep their customers as happy as possible, so exploits/bots that are more visible are dealt with more expediently.

There's a significant amount of revenue to be made from banning accounts.. for one, the players purchase WoW and the expansion packs again, and they pay for a new subscription. It also looks good on paper because it counts as 2 "active subscriptions" since the banned account was already paid until the end of the month.

Blizzard will have large ban waves when revenue is typically lower than expected. They want to make sure their quarterly returns are as high as possible (to impress their shareholders), so bans typically take place during certain quarters.

This well-timed ban wave takes place right before their first quarter ending March 31, 2011. It's also taking place right before pay day. Coincidence? I don't think so. =]

(Note: It's not a very good sign that this took place so soon after Cataclysm sales either.)

As you're aware, Activision Blizzard prepared their shareholders during their last conference with the knowledge that they shouldn't expect any major game releases this year. With that in mind, they still need to drive revenue as best they can - meaning this year, you should expect either new paid services (or existing services with a twist like special discounts) and/or new virtual pets or other items that can be purchased. We might see some new merchandising, or other cool little things to increase revenue. You can also expect increased banning and re-activation of accounts. =]

This applies to all of Blizzard's games, not just World of Warcraft.

And if that wasn't interesting enough, look what Blizzard just posted (Source):

I'll take that as a confirmation.

In my earlier post about Subscription Counts ("Revisited"), one reader had asked if I included discounts for 3 month and 6 month subscription plans. I mentioned that on average, most players pay on a month-to-month basis (and those were the figures I used). It was a good question though, and I really wanted to find out what percentage of players pay month-to-month versus other payment plans.

I also was curious if there was a link between a user's subscription plan and what the player did in-game. For example, gold farmers buy accounts on a month-to-month basis because they are banned so often. I assumed that regular players (who bot or cheat) also pay month-to-month due to fear of being banned (e.g. they plan ahead).

So, I created a survey.

Unfortunately, I had to obtain the information under false pretenses (e.g. I'm a noob, this is for a school project, etc.). I did this because I wanted to obtain as many honest results as possible and like most research studies I didn't want the subjects to know what my true motives were.

I ended up getting 1,022 unique respondents - and the number is still growing.

That number is pretty good actually, especially considering that the Daedalus Project surveyed 1,019 players for their WoW demographics study.

Anyways, here were the results:

- 89% of the users were actively playing WoW, the other 11% were no longer playing.
- 85% of the players were from US-based Realms, 14% from EU-based Realms, and the remaining were from China / Multiple Realms.
- 63% of those surveyed had 1 month plans, 15% had 3 month plans, 10% had 6 month plans, 10% used Game Cards, and the other 2% were Free (e.g. Blizzard employees / billing bugs).
- 65% of those surveyed have never cheated in WoW, but 35% HAVE cheated. This was interesting, I thought it might be 25% maximum.
- 71% have never engaged in gold selling, 29% have sold/bought gold.
- 17% have been temporarily banned for some reason. 5% have been perma-banned for some reason (you really have to do something bad to get perma-banned.) =]
- Of all those surveyed, 20% are (were) afraid of being caught, 19% are fearless, and the remaining have never cheated.
- 19% of the total users have cheated in other MMORPG's.
- 91% of the respondents have cheated in single-player games. (No surprises there. I think that most users would probably cheat in WoW though, if they were completely free from repercussions.)
- 78% have witnessed another player cheating (this would have to be pretty obvious - so speed hacking or botting most likely was witnessed.)

And here's some of the more interesting data I pulled from the survey:

Average Game Time

NA/EU users averaged 3.48 hours per day, which is 24.36 hours per week. (8.6% of the total users played less than 1 hour per day which I rounded up to 1 hour per day, and 3.1% of total users played for more than 9 hours per day which I rounded down to 9 hours per day to obtain this total estimate.)

Back in 2005, the Daedalus Project estimated that on average, WoW players put in 22.7 hours per week. I suspect the number has gone up though, especially with the launch of Cataclysm still being recent.

Various studies have put the average Chinese player game time at 4 hours per day (28-35 hours per week in some cases.)

What NA/EU Users Pay Per Month

Excluding players who get their subscription for free,

74% pay $15 per month
16% pay $14 per month
10% pay $13 per month

Subscription Models

69% of the players who have cheated in World of Warcraft had 1 month subscriptions.

59% of the players who have NEVER cheated in World of Warcraft also had 1 month subscriptions.

For those who were afraid of getting caught, 73% had 1 month plans, 11.5% had 3 month plans, and 7% had 6 month plans.

Very interesting.. that's what I was looking for. =]

Players Who Have Cheated

Of all the users who cheated, 32.3% were not afraid of being caught and 67.7% WERE afraid of being caught.

59% have cheated in another MMORPG, and the remaining 41% have never cheated in another MMORPG (or don't play any others).

Summary

So, these NA/EU WoW users on average play 24 hours per week (versus China's 28 per week on average.) 74% of these players are paying the $15 per month rate, and there's a higher percentage of players who cheat that end up selecting the month-to-month payment plan.

There's a ton of other stuff that I could have asked, but I was really only interested in subscription numbers and if there was a correlation with "cheating" accounts. I wanted the survey is to be as short and quick as possible too. One day though, I might make a HUGE WoW survey that's very precise (e.g. how many people stopped playing when Cataclysm came out, what kind of cheating they engage in, how often, how much gold they make from cheating, how much they sell, precise time per week, etc.) Guess we'll see..

Keep in mind that this is just a survey from active /r/wow Redditors, some questions can be open to interpretation or confusion, and there's a margin of error.. but it's all still interesting nonetheless.

Did you know that there's a fun way in-game whereby Blizzard could stop, prevent or at least mitigate the effect of account hacking in World of Warcraft? Not only that, but it can be easily implemented and they already have the system in place to do it.

Now, Blizzard has already done a bunch of neat features that reduce the impact of account hacking. I'm not talking about region based account locking or Warden updates - but rather smaller things, like making gear Bind on Pickup and setting their vendor price really low and/or making them immune to disenchanting.

You see, when your account is hacked, they want to clean out your account as quickly as possible. The cleaner will disenchant or sell all of your gear/items and transfer that gold to a laundering account. The most gold they get from you is your on-hand gold and what they can get for vendoring/disenchanting.

Vendoring, for the most part, has been taken care of - you can hardly get anything for vendoring gear, so it's not really worth it.

The big one is protecting your own gold (or your guild's gold).

What if you had the optional ability to deposit your gold into your bank account, and then purchase an in-game Goblin "combination lock" for your bank account?

The Goblin "Gold iLock™" would be a device sitting next to your personal bank (or guild bank if you're the GM) that you interact with it and enter a code to access your personal belongings and gold.

Say that you only have to unlock it once when you login, and it stays unlocked until you log off (e.g. to avoid having to enter the combination every time you try to access your bank.)

The combination lock could be programmed by yourself by using a total of 5 simple movements. For example, UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, and JUMP. Or it could be made more complicated (eg, spell casts, numbers, etc. to increase the number of permutations.)

The beauty of using standard player movement as a code is that even if you had a keylogger installed on your PC - your account gold and belongings would still be protected. To the keylog file, it would just appear as normal character movements with no special identifying keystrokes. The hacker would not be able to differentiate between normal game play and combination unlocks. So, if your account was hacked, they still couldn't access your gold or valuables. =]

Imagine the Vashj'ir Seahorse training quest where you need to move in different directions. For example, you interact with the Goblin "Gold iLock" system, it asks for you to enter your code, then just press UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT or whatever. Bingo, your personal bank unlocks and you can access your expensive items and gold. (Your player doesn't have to actually move or have character animations during your sequence presses either for additional security.)

This is purely optional too. Some users might find it fun to have it in-game, plus the added security measures are simply invaluable. This could also be applied to Guild Banks.

Now that covers a big part of the issue - your gold, mats, expensive items, etc.

Even though that would make a big difference on it's own, let's take it to the next level. What about gear on your person?

Gear that can't be disenchanted works really well, however that defeats the purpose of enchanting doesn't it? I suppose you could put a timer on it so that it has to be disenchanted on pickup or within a certain time frame. For example, 24 hours to D/E before it's permanent - that would surely revitalize the disenchanting industry for many.

But what if you could have special "enchants" for your gear (for free) that makes the item IMMUNE to disenchanting? =]

This might be very useful for a character that didn't have the enchanting profession, for example, since they probably intend on keeping the equipment for a really long time.

I suppose you could remove this special "enchant" at a later date by using the same lock/unlock code that's shared with your bank account. But even then, this is gear that would typically stay with them for a long time.. and this method would start prioritizing dungeon raids between gear-grinding for profit or for use. (From a Blizzard business perspective, this makes sense since this would actually encourage players to play longer.. which is what they want.)

You put all of these strategies together and you get something simple, fun in-game, and significantly useful. It would essentially kill the account-hacking industry too. What's the point in hacking an account if you can't access their gold and can't D/E their items?

After all, you can't rely on players (who are mostly technically illiterate) to secure and protect their own PCs themselves.. part of their $15 per month bill is paying for insurance, and if Blizzard has the tools and ability, they should be taking these extra steps to protect their customers.

Not sure if you've read older posts, but way back in September of 2010 I had said that the ZG mounts would be making a comeback. I couldn't find any other posts to the contrary.. all of the news and WoW sites were all saying that the mounts were gone for good.

I had heard something else though. =]

Glad to see that everything I wrote about so long ago has finally come to fruition - the mounts, the Insane title, and the Qiraji Battle Tank available for more players and outside of the instance.

In regards to new Cataclysm realms, it appears that everything was all setup internally for new realm deployments too. But, the "Cataclysm experiment" failed to meet Blizzard's expectations and it looks like it has actually resulted in a reverse flow of subscriptions unfortunately. =[

This is good news for their next expansion pack however (or even content patches between now and then.) It means that they'll really have to do something awesome to bring players back. I'm hoping for a couple new Hero classes, a new crafting profession (create relics/wands/bows/fletching or elemental poisons for rogues), class-specific quests (like a Rogue's Den that issues daily assassination quests that require cunning), and/or maybe a third faction (with all brand new classes/races "from another dimension" to adjust the lore.) Paid class changes, larger backpack, more character slots, or progression servers might be interesting too.

WoW Subscriptions Around The World

In January 2007, when Blizzard announced 8 million subscriptions worldwide (Source):

China: 3.5 million
North America: 2.0 million
Europe: 1.5 million
Remaining Territories: 1.0 million

In January 2008, when Blizzard announced 10 million subscriptions worldwide (Source):

China: 4.5 million
North America: 2.5 million
Europe: 2.0 million
Remaining Territories: 1.0 million

Blizzard hasn't made any other official announcements detailing breakdown of subscribers per geography since then, but based on growth trends I think it's pretty safe to assume that their current (12 million) subscribers are approximately:

China: 5.5 million
North America: 3.0 million
Europe: 2.5 million
Remaining Territories: 1.0 million

These figures actually confirm a lot of other estimations out there that put Chinese subscriptions at between 5 and 6 million total. Or basically, "about half" of total worldwide subscriptions.

How many real players are there, though?

In North America and Europe, this information is really difficult to confirm. Blizzard does not release this information to the public so it's up the users to figure out approximate counts.

The Warcraft CensusPlus UI Mod is an addon for WoW where players can poll players online, and all of the information is collected to generate an approximate census of WoW in NA and EU. However, this information is not very accurate, there's a lot of duplication of numbers, and data can be skewed or altered by users.

Right now, for example, total NA and EU players are calculated to be 6,417,374 total users on the census page. However, according to Blizzard, their subscription count in NA and EU is about 5.5 million maximum. =]

In China, however, it's a different story.

NetEase operates WoW in China, not Blizzard, and they're not as restrictive with their policies or information. (Gold/Account trading is perfectly legitimate there by the way.) NetEase publishes raw data across all of their realms, and is available in census format (showing peak logins for both factions and on each realm).

According to Blizzard, total subscribers in China are about 5.5 million. According to their servers, however, total players peaked at about 2.4 million as of this month. That's the most I've ever seen it.

Estimated players in NA/EU

For this, I'll start out by using Blizzard's official announcement from January 2008 when they announced their 10 million subscribers.

China: 4.5 million
North America: 2.5 million
Europe: 2.0 million
Remaining Territories: 1.0 million

During this time, their Net Revenue for World of Warcraft was $275 million. Keep in mind, that this figure also includes WoW sales, Paid Services, Pets, etc.

Since we know how much they pay for WoW subscriptions in each of these geographies, we can get a much more accurate estimation of how many players there are at the most.

China pays ~$7.27 per month
North America pays ~$15 US per month.
Europe pays ~$17.6 (12.99€) per month.
Remaining Territories pay about ~$15 per month.

NetEase, however, has a special contract with Blizzard. NetEase collects subscription payments, and they pay Blizzard a 55% Royalty Fee. So, Blizzard is collecting ~$3.99 per month from each Chinese subscriber.

Using these figures and their subscriber counts, here's what their revenue should have been:

China: 4.5 million x $3.99 x 3 months = $53,865,000
North America: 2.5 million x $15 x 3 months = $112,500,000
Europe: 2.0 million x $17.6 x 3 months = $105,600,000
Remaining Territories: 1.0 million x $15 x 3 months = $45,000,000

That's a total of ~$317 million when it _should_ have been $275 million.

That $275 million figure also includes a ton of other revenue too (game sales, paid services, etc). For example, if subscriptions were to totally match revenue, then there would be 8.6 million players out of 10 million subscribers. However, if there was $50 million worth of game sales and services during that time, then the real players would have been 7 million out of 10 million subscribers.

So, let's try something more recent (e.g. 12 million subscribers) and where we know approximately how many sales there were out of the total revenue to get a better picture.

During the third quarter ending September 30, 2010, total WoW revenue was $289 million. During this period, Blizzard launched WOTLK in China (Aug 31) and they peaked at 12 million subscribers. Since Chinese players did not need to purchase WOTLK, this provides a better revenue figure to work with since it won't include those larger amounts of Game Sales. (Paid Services, Pets, and minor sales will still be included in this total revenue figure however.)

China: 5.5 million x $3.99 x 3 months = ~$65.8 million
North America: 3.0 million x $15 x 3 months = $135 million
Europe: 2.5 million x $17.6 x 3 months = $132 million
Remaining Territories: 1.0 million x $15 x 3 months = $45 million

So, total revenue _should_ have been about $378 million, but it was $289 million instead.

Let's say however, that there are a total of 3 million real players out of 5.5 million Chinese subscribers, and re-adjust those numbers. That's still $342 million though.

Hmm.. okay, let's say China player count is 50% of official Subscriber counts (like what it should be). And, all of the other geographies are 3/4 of their official counts.

That's a total of $267 million, which is much closer to the $289 million total. That also leaves $22 million in potential game sales, pre-paid services, pet sales, etc. If that's the correct number, that would mean that there are 7.6 million real players out of 12 million "Subscribers" worldwide. Does $22 million sound too low or too high for all of those purchases during a 3 month period though?

Let's get an absolute maximum figure: Total real revenue was 76% of what it should have been, so if you apply that number to total subscribers that gives you approx. 9.17 million players. That's the absolute most it could ever be, assuming that there were no game sales, no paid services, no pet sales, absolutely nothing but subscriptions during that 3 month period.

Of course, we know that's not true.. if we knew how much Blizzard sales (outside of subs) are during a 3 month period we could get a much more accurate estimate. For now though, real players are probably about 7.5 to 8 million out of 12 million total.

Previously, it was estimated (taking a different approach) that the maximum possible number of players were about 7.2 million out of 11.5 million total. (That's equivalent to 7.5 million out of 12 million.)

However, there's one important item I've been leaving out. In April 2009, NetEase paid for a 3-year license agreement in the amount of $30 million for the right to operate World of Warcraft. In addition to that flat rate, they also pay recurring license fees, royalties, and consultancy fees to Blizzard. (Several sources estimate "minimum annual revenue shares of $180 million" for example, meaning that they must pay Blizzard at least $15 million per month. Is that minimum subscription, or is that on top of royalty fees?) There could very well be another $30-45 million, for example, included in their revenue figure that has nothing to do with subscriptions. (That would reduce 7.5 to 6.8 million.)

However, for arguments sake I'm using the more inflated figures in Blizzard's favor.

The Magic Number

One thing to remember too is that subscription numbers are always fluctuating from month to month, and there are always different factors at play (seasons, server issues, ban waves, new expansion packs, boring content, etc.) There are always players coming and going from the game (e.g. new players or attrition.) Over one quarter, 100,000 players might leave because of boring content.. but 60,000 new players might join.

Blizzard only announces when they peak at certain numbers (maximum number of simultaneous "Subscriptions"), but if you look at all of the possible real players who have joined, played, and stayed or left the game, it's possible that World of Warcraft has cycled through 20-40 million unique individuals around the world over the years. That's actually really cool. =]

(But it's impossible to know the number for sure unless Blizzard releases all total WoW Classic digital/retail/everything sales since day 1.)

Over the past 3 years, though, the subscription numbers have plateaued (no longer growing at explosive rate seen before) and it seems like the "magic number" they're hovering around for real players is probably between 6.5 and 8.5 million (at any time playing World of Warcraft). That's still a freakin' huge number of players for a 6 year old game.

This gives you a really good idea of Fantasy MMORPG POTENTIAL too. Given that you have an awesome game, great gameplay, an addiction factor, and your game is as popular as it could ever be - your maximum potential number of players will be about 6.5 to 8.5 million players. As a publisher, if you can attain that amount, you've reached the maximum potential possible for that game. I don't think SCI-FI MMORPG can reach the same heights as Fantasy.. but Real Life Simulations (Call of Duty / GTA) could probably exceed it as that genre has a larger market demographic.

I already have an old entry that explains Active Subscriptions, and multiple blog posts covering many facets of this topic. However, I decided to make a new entry to help further explain that there is a difference between real players versus Active Subscribers™. But, I'll be taking a different approach.

Blizzard Has 12 Million Subscribers

In the older post (August 2010), I examined real player numbers during a time when World of Warcraft's Subscriber count was officially 11.5 million.

However, this became a major problem for many readers (here and on other forums). The biggest excuse used was, "Well.. these numbers must be totally wrong because Blizzard's last announcement stated 12 million players for a fact! This is really old now too, so none of these numbers apply to today."

Just to clear things up, the same concept of real players vs Subscriber counts apply no matter what Blizzard's Subscribers presently are.

For example,
Blizzard announces 9 million Subscribers, but there are 5 million real players.
Blizzard announces 10 million Subscribers, but there are 6 million real players.
Blizzard announces 11 million Subscribers, but there are 7 million real players.
Blizzard announces 12 million Subscribers, but there are 8 million real players.

Based on those trends, I think it's safe to assume that if Blizzard announces 13 million Subscribers (and absolutely no variables change), there are probably about 9 million real players.

So, if this post is read towards of the end of this year, when Blizzard reaches 13 million players for example, the same concept applies. This should be a no-brainer.

Blizzard Only Makes Announcements When They Peak

When Blizzard reaches a certain Subscriber milestone, they make an announcement. There might be an announcement if they reach 12.5 or 13 million Subscribers for example.

On Oct 28, 2008 Blizzard "surpassed 11 million subscribers". On Nov 21, 2008 Blizzard "reached 11.5 million subscribers."

In February 2010, Mike Morhaime stated that "there are currently 11.5 million World of Warcraft subscribers, the same number of users the game had in December 2008." That's from Dec 2008 to Feb 2010! There was no growth during that time, but they didn't make any announcements of Subscriber decay.

In fact, there was quite a substantial amount of Subscriber decay during this time.

From June 2009 to October 2009, The9 was transitioning ownership of WoW to Blizzard's new partner NetEase. During this time, all servers were offline and there was no WoW in China.

When servers were brought back online in October 2009, NetEase was ordered during the following month (Nov) to stop charging current players and stop new registrations until the Chinese government could approve the game. From November 2009 to March 2010, NetEase was not allowed to collect subscription fees or register new players.

Ignoring this fact, let's just examine the 4 months when servers were offline and there were no subscriptions or players.

That was a loss of approximately 5-6 million players world wide. There were no announcements made, e.g. "Blizzard announces World of Warcraft is down to 5 million worldwide!" After all, why would they?

However, during this entire time news websites around the world continued to promote 11 or 11.5 million Subscribers, even though the number was closer to half.

On August 5, 2009, Activision Blizzard held their quarterly earnings call for the quarter ending June 30, 2009. Now, keep in mind that there was no WoW in China during June of 2009.

Activision Blizzard stated in their SEC filing that World of Warcraft "is played by more than 11 million subscribers worldwide."

In that same Form 10-Q, they also stated: "Our new licensee for World of Warcraft in China will not be able to begin offering the game in China on a paid basis until we obtain all required regulatory approvals, and we do not know when that will happen. World of Warcraft was unavailable to players in mainland China from June 7, 2009 (local), the date on which our prior license arrangements expired, until July 30, 2009 (local), when our new licensee began making the game available to our previous players in China in a test format without charge."

(Note: They still didn't have all approvals, so the date was extended beyond July 30, 2009 - but that was the limit of the information that they knew at the time.)

So, even though they were around 5-6 million official Subscribers during June - Blizzard still stated in an SEC Filing that WoW is played by more than 11 million subscribers worldwide.

This is completely honest and true, no matter what you might believe. It's all about wording, and that's one of the points I'm trying to make.

1. They only make announcements when they peak Subscribers.
2. When they say "20 million Subscribers", that doesn't necessarily mean that they actually have "20 million subscribers" (or anywhere close to that number) at that time.
3. When they say "20 million Subscribers", that doesn't necessarily mean real players.

It's all based on wording and their last official census announcement.

Right now, for example, they have "12 million Subscribers". Even if something bad were to happen, Blizzard can still tell news outlets "At last count, we are at 12 million Subscribers" or they can say:

We're currently at 12 million Subscribers worldwide!

*based on internal figures and calculations.

Even if Subscribers (or real players) are actually closer to 4 million. It's still a completely true statement.. based on their own findings or methods.

Why Do You Keep Capitalizing "Subscribers"??

I want to ensure that there's a distinction between Blizzard's definition of "Subscribers" and what you might consider a subscriber.

Yes, Blizzard has a special internal definition of what a "Subscriber" actually means. If that's not proof alone that there are big differences between real players and Blizzard Subscribers - I don't know what is.

Subject Lines and Header Titles might say one thing, but please read the fine print. All MMO companies do this with their numbers, it's not just limited to Blizzard and this shouldn't be a big secret (apparently, though, most gamers are just in complete denial about this distinction).

Here is Blizzard's official definition of a Subscriber™:

World of Warcraft’s Subscriber Definition

World of Warcraft® subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.

So basically,

- a Subscriber is not one single player.
- a Subscriber is any account that has a paid subscription fee (if you haven't logged in, but still have an active subcription - then yes it counts).
- a Subscriber is ALSO any account with a first month's subscription.
- a Subscriber is ALSO any person who has an active prepaid card.
- a Subscriber is ALSO any "Internet Game Room" players who have accessed the game over the past 30 days.

What this means:

- If an account gets banned and a new account is purchased during the same month, that counts as two active subscriptions for one user.
- You pay for the month at the start of the month. When you get banned, you still paid for that entire month and Blizzard won't be refunding your money. The banned/cancelled account will no longer apply once you reach the end of the month.
- A "first month's subscription" is very common especially for gold farmers and gold sellers/traders who need to create new accounts frequently.
- Even though "expired prepaid cards" are mentioned, the cards in fact never expire. You can purchase one in NA/EU, but wait several months/years to activate it for example. When you purchase a prepaid card in China, you can keep adding time to it for as long as you want.
- Blizzard does not provide a definition of an "active prepaid card", so it's possible but highly unlikely, that prepaid cards mean any card that have time on them (whether that time has been used or not.) Since Blizzard does not have immediate access to Point of Sale data, they would base "active prepaid cards" on restocking quantities. If a retailer requires 50 new cards, for example, it's assumed that there are now 50 "active prepaid cards" in the hands of Subscribers, and those would therefore count as a Subscriber.
- Since the game is free in China and it's inexpensive to play, many users have multiple accounts and multiple pre-paid cards. 1 player might represent 2-4 Subscribers for example. These are all considered active pre-paid cards as long as there are still minutes on it.
- Pre-paid cards in China hold minutes (2000 minutes or 4000 minutes for example). If the cards still have 5 minutes left on them, and they are thrown out, that still counts as an Active Subscription. Until the card is completely expired (used up), then it counts as an active prepaid card as per Blizzard's definition.
- There are players worldwide who have multiple accounts (multi-boxing), not a large amount but it exists. One player might represent 8 Subscribers for example.
- "Internet Game Room" players are an interesting scenario. In China for example, players can goto "Game Rooms" (e.g. gaming cafés instead of playing from home) where they can pay for 1-2 hours of gameplay for example. Any user who plays within the 30 day period is counted as an official subscriber. So, you could login to WoW from a Game Room, play for 1 hour to check mail or guild activities and then not sign-in again for an entire month - that still counts as an Active Subscription. Imagine the sheer number of unique logins from Game Rooms? "Game Rooms" as Blizzard calls them are extremely popular in China.

Not Done Yet

Since this entire thing is going to get pretty big, I'm going to divide it up into parts.

From what you've seen so far though, you can probably guess that there is indeed a big difference between what you view as a subscriber (real player? one account?) and what Blizzard defines as a Subscriber.

Next up, I'll show you what Blizzard has said about Subscribers around the world, how many real players are in China, and how many are estimated to be in North America and Europe.

In NA/EU, Blizzard does not publish actual player counts (versus Subscribers). However, in China the WoW Servers are run by NetEase and they do publish actual player counts. I think you'll be surprised by the results.

Another rumor which states that Blizzard's next expansion pack will be called "Emerald Nightmare".

This rumor originated on MMO-Champion.com:

Leak Confirms 'Emerald Nightmare' as Next World of Warcraft Expansion

While it will not surprise players familiar with the game's extensive lore, an anonymous source within the Activision-Blizzard team responsible for the best-selling World of Warcraft MMORPG and it's two expansions has confirmed the next to be titled 'Emerald Nightmare'. It will take places after the events of "Stormrage", a novel authored by Richard A. Knaak which explores Malfurion Stormrage's attempts to cleanse the Emerald Dream of Xavius's corruption. The source also confirmed a tentative release date of Q4 2012, consistent with the release schedule of previous expansions.

It sounds a little dubious since it's written "news style" to give the appearance that it was copied from another source, however it did in fact originate on MMO-Champion.

It was re-posted on the official Blizzard forums, however it was only up for 1 hour before Blizzard deleted the thread. You can see the original read here.

Cached copies of the Forum Post (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2016644135) can be found here and here, but they won't be up for much longer though.

The user Leynah wrote: "Just got word from my anonymous source at Blizzard that this source smells and leaves crumbs all over his desk. He made no mention of refuting the claim... just complained about the guy."

As you recall, Cataclysm details were "leaked" on MMO-Champion, however that was by Boubouille (the site admin) who had a known relationship with Blizzard. This 'Emerald Nightmare' rumor was started by a new user.

It's not really a big surprise, though, if the next expansion has something to do with the Emerald Dream. Blizzard has already hinted at it in the past (future expansions packs will be "a dream and a nightmare") and it has been speculated by many users.

A future expansion pack will no doubt contain the Emerald Dream and Nightmare, but the origin of this rumor is questionable (e.g. "It will take places", "World of Warcraft MMORPG and it's two expansions" (pre-Cataclysm rumor I'm guessing), the "news-look" even though this is the original source, the age of the account, and that it was re-posted to the WoW forums seconds later by a Level 1 account named 'Fdhgj', who also then deleted their own account.) So yeah.. I'm calling bullshit on this rumor.

Here's a video that more people need to watch, especially game publishers and developers.

It's a conversation with Jared Psigoda, a leader in the RMT industry. He's also the individual who informed Markeedragon about the new PayPal & Blizzard relationship that's still making the rounds on the net.



He says that Blizzard has certain trends in their ban-waves. Typically, they occur before an expansion pack launches (as a clean sweep) or when they experience poor quarterly financials. He confirms that Blizzard gets a "huge revenue influx" when a ban-wave occurs, due to the sheer number of accounts requiring reactivation (Note: Monthly fees also double-up meaning twice as many "Active Subscriptions"). These accounts make up a huge portion of revenue for Blizzard as there are hundreds of thousands working in the industry.

Does any of this sound familiar? =]

It's certainly nice to have this officially confirmed by another industry professional.

He also talks about a couple other interesting topics, like which games they avoid (since there's no profit to be made) and how most "hackers" gain access to your online gaming account.

Consider first, though, the amount of money developers spend on managing the aftermath of Gold Sellers and Hacked Accounts:

- Investigation teams need training, benefits, and salaries.
- The amount of time spent investigating accounts and confirming that they are gold buyers/sellers. Or confirming cheating, hacking, etc.
- Money spent on hiring and training large quantities of Customer Support personnel (high turn-over environment)
- More Customer Support staff needed for the amount of farming, cheating, hacking, recovery, etc.
- Blizzard even had to change their own Recovery Process, which goes to show how difficult and unmanageable the situation was becoming.
- The more staff you employ, the higher the risk and/or costs of mistakes (e.g. disgruntled employees, injury liability, employee theft.)
- Stolen and hacked accounts lead to massive customer service issues. Not only is it taxing on the customer service departments, but it is also taxing on their customer retention rates.
- You also have to pay the salaries of the managers who manage these teams, and financial services (HR, Facilities, IT, etc) who serve these managers and employees.

A massive money-eating monster has been created that just addresses "clean-up operations" or the chain-reaction and consequences of something that could have been prevented in the first place. There's a word for that: negligence.

All of those issues can be fixed with very simple solutions.

How To Stop Gold Farmers

- RMT (aka secondary sales) thrives on subscription based games, not games that are heavily micro-transaction based.
- RMT is almost exclusively World of Warcraft. Gold farmers and hacked accounts would suffer greatly if WoW were to change it's model.
- If the game is Free to Play or the developer sells items/gold themselves, RMT companies cannot compete with these developers who can print their own money.
- If people stop buying gold, there's nothing for farmers to sell. So, make gold worthless like how it was done in Diablo 2. (Or find a balance.)
- The more easily you can obtain gold in-game, the more it loses it's value and drives down the profit margin of gold farmers. Eventually there's a point where the value isn't "worth enough" to farm.
- Or leave gold very valuable in-game, but simply make it "soulbound". It can't be traded, but it can be used to purchase expensive services or crafts (that take a long time to develop and collect soulbound materials for) from other players. Prices for these services/goods would be fixed as well. Or the gold can be used to buy valuable items/gear, but from NPCs instead of real players.
- Make all items Bind On Pickup, so that epic items cannot be traded.

The best solution, however, is just for developers to sell the gold themselves. It's a quick way to shutdown the virtual trading industry.

This probably won't happen with World of Warcraft, considering the verbal commitments already made to their customers - but it's a viable solution for their next-generation MMO (considering the gameplay approach and plans on increasing "real world" interaction).

How To Stop Power-Leveling Services

One of the problems that RMT has been facing (for power-leveling services and hackers alike) is IP-based account locking. When an IP suddenly changes, the account is locked, and the owner of the account needs to call Blizzard to unlock it.

Unfortunately, Blizzard has also taken it upon themselves to take additional proactive (provocative?) measures, like cancelling credit cards of innocent players overseas and screwing them over.

Nevertheless, IP based account locking is a very effective process. It's geography based at the moment, but what if they made it for location specific? For example, limiting it to a specific ISP (in case the user has a dynamic IP address) but allowing them a maximum of 2-3 different IP address "registrations" in the same geography. The other option is MAC Address locking, but maybe allow a maximum or 2 PCs and additional ones require online approval and an "identity check".

It's one option that shouldn't be a nuisance for most players anyways. =]

How To Stop Gaming Account Hackers

This might surprise many of you. According to Jared, account hacking due to key-loggers isn't as significant as account hacking due to your gaming websites.

The problem is, most players use the same email address from World of Warcraft and they register it on other websites, forums, or gaming communities. They typically use the same password as well. That's how most WoW (and other) accounts are hacked.

Chinese hackers primarily target gaming websites and forums and steal user database information. Some of the gaming news sites (forums, communities, etc) are aware of the breach, however they don't tell their customers. Others might not be aware of the breach, and Chinese hackers may frequently revisit the database due to it's ease of access.

I don't own an Authenticator, but I have multiple WoW accounts. The reason I've never been hacked in 7 years is because I use a unique email address for each WoW account, and I have never re-used the same email account for anything else online. I have over a dozen different email addresses that I use for different purposes, and about 40 other "online identities" that have no interconnectivity. Passwords are never the same either.

If you want to substantially increase the protection of your WoW account right now, register a new GMAIL address right away, create a unique password, and change your WoW email address/login ID to the new GMAIL account. Your WoW account password should also be changed to something unique. And, of course, make sure to scan your PC for key-loggers before starting all of this. 20 minutes of work now will save you days of potential aggravation in the future.

Since most players don't know this, Blizzard needs to force a change in their customer behavior in order to reduce account hacking. After all, it will benefit their customers as well as themselves (in a huge way.)

Here is Jared's solution that can prevent 90% of hacked accounts (from a developer perspective): FORCE PLAYERS TO CHANGE THEIR PASSWORD EVERY MONTH.

Alternatively, Blizzard could "educate" players at the login screen to change their password. Or make it very easy at the login screen to change their password, but gently remind players to change it every 60 days for example. If they were to force players to change all of their passwords right now, they would see a HUGE and immediate impact to the number of hacked accounts.

More people need to get this knowledge across to Blizzard. If there are enough people demanding the change, the more positive impact it will have for at-risk players (and only serves to help Blizzard.) Unless, of course, there's more revenue to be made from simply selling authenticators.

Recently, I saw a funny post on the WoW Forums where a user asked Blizzard why their paid services cost so much.

He made an interesting point: on the PTRs, faction changes, server transfers, and customizations were completely free for all players, the process is very quick, and it doesn't seem to take up that many resources. So why are paid services so expensive if it's such an easy task?

Check out Blizzard's response. There's nothing like getting an answer from Customer Service in a confusing and condescending tone.

If you got a little lost while trying to read that, don't feel bad. Customer Service professionals are "supposed" to be trained in proper communication with customers - but apparently, Nephadne wasn't. So here's a translation from asshole-into-English for you:
_______________________________________________________
Question:
Why do paid services like faction changes and migrations cost so much if you're already doing it for free?

Answer:
As I understand it, you want to know why paid factions like faction changes and migrations cost so much if we're already doing it for free.

Unfortunately, I'm totally the wrong person to answer this. But, I'll answer anyways.

The reason for this is because these services are non-essential and therefore SHOULD carry a hefty charge.

If that sounds fucked up to you, please remember that it cost us a lot of money to put these automated systems in place.

It also costs a lot of money to maintain them.

Once again, because these services are only for cosmetic or for personal preference reasons - that's why they cost so much.
_______________________________________________________

Other people know better though, especially those who have worked as Database Administrators.

Populating information across multiple databases or servers is not a very difficult operation, nor is it very expensive or challenging to setup. After all, that's the entire purpose of databases and how they were designed from the ground up! Blizzard makes it sound like a "QUERY" is a very difficult and expensive process.

All of their automated mechanisms are already in place and they HAVE been in place for several years now. They probably even recuperated all of their "development costs" on the first day that the paid service was made available.

Funny how they also said that the services were non-essential and only for personal preference alone. (Character Re-Customizations cost $15, Transfers cost $25, Faction Changes cost $30, Name Changes cost $10, etc.)

I agree that Character Re-customizations are mostly for preference reasons. But what if you want to change your character to make it more intimidating in PVP (a very useful tool), or changing race/gender combinations so that you're harder to target?

What if you're being stalked by another player? Or constantly grieved or harassed? Transfers and Name Changes then become essential services.

Faction Changes? Those are VERY essential if you actually want to progress in the game or collect Honor Points. Realms are so imbalanced, that this becomes an essential service for those trying to join Dungeons or Battlegrounds (or want to avoid 2-3 hour waits, whereas opposite factions wait 5-10 minutes.)

Blizzard claims that only non-essential services are paid.. does that mean that essential services should be free? =]

So why do the paid services cost so much? Quite frankly, they're good marketing numbers. The prices are _just_ high enough so that people who can afford them will pay for the service. And those who can't afford them will just pay Blizzard over a longer period by their time invested in leveling new characters on new realms.

It's also set pretty high so that it seems like it's a premium service which is very expensive for Blizzard to maintain. If you're paying the same amount that you paid for the Cataclysm expansion pack, that must mean that the service is VERY special indeed.

It actually reminds me a little of this scene from "The Invention of Lying". When Edward Norton (the cop) is asked why his bribes were so high, he responds: "I feel like when I set the price up higher, it takes it out of the realm of petty crime and helps me preserve my sense of personal integrity."

It's not just Blizzard Paid Services that does this though, it's a standard practice everywhere and you can apply this to almost any service or product. (If you work in a certain industry, you'll know how much something _really_ costs to manufacture or service.)

Many services are overpriced and given the illusion that their services are worth the price, or because they are unique or special. It's the primary reason why cartels were created too - if you goto a competitor, they'll have the same prices too. Gasoline, food, automotive mechanics, web design, applications development, technical support, etc. Hell, even DVRs (for security systems) would cost $50,000 from vendors - but if you knew what you were doing, you could buy the equipment for less than $800 and install yourself.

While I was looking up some old Blizzard news announcements, I came across this old article from IGN. It's always interesting to see these old posts detailing the future of games. =]

It talked about various things that Blizzard had planned before beta testing began.. so, unfortunately, I can't really add these items to that WoW Nostalgia post.

Anyways, check it out:

- Warriors had defense skills that were limited buffs (no stances).
- Warriors had an ability called "Slice and Dice" that granted additional damage when using swords.
- Shamans had an armor spell called Rockskin and could cast grasping roots (which grows roots from the ground to snare enemies).
- Shamans had a spell called "Immolation" for setting enemies on fire and burning slowly.
- Mages had a spell called "Fire Shield" that did damage to attacking players. (Although this never made it, the similar Molten Armor was later introduced in TBC.)
- There were core skills, secondary skills, and trade abilities. Secondary skills allowed Warriors, for example, to have first-aid, sneaking, thief abilities, etc. I wonder what other secondary skills they had considered?
- Core skills was basically weapon training (and possibly spells or certain skills like "Taming") by the way.
- This was interesting: "We do know there will be two continents however, Azeroth and Calendor." They even italicized "do", meaning that Blizzard confirmed to them that the two continents would be called Azeroth and Calendor. They might have misheard Kalimdor as Calendor (or maybe that was the original spelling?). Eastern Kingdoms was once known as Azotha, but in the Warcraft 3 manual Azeroth is a continent, not the planet.

Very interesting indeed. =]

Here are some other interesting details collected during that time (From E3 2002 Previews, the June 2003 issue of GMR, and forum posts).

- There will be over 100 dungeons in World of Warcraft. (Also confirmed by gamesdomain.com who had a private preview by Blizzard.)
- World of Warcraft ended up having 36 total dungeons by the way. BC had 26 dungeons by the end and WOTLK 29. Cataclysm launched with 10 new dungeons (and there are 2 new ones to be released later this year).
- Gnolls were changed to Gnomes as the playable race. (Textures were re-purposed for NPCs.)
- Entertainment on public transportation, like gambling.
- Mounts provide a bonus to armor when travelling, but could "not be used in combat yet". That feature was supposed to be implemented in the future.
- There were supposed to be hundreds of secondary skills (the only ones known at the time were First Aid, Thief (aka Pickpocketing), Lockpicking, and Sneaking which could be obtained by any class.)
- Players accumulate Special Points (SP) to unlock secondary skills.
- Druids could shapeshift into "unobtrusive animals" that are native to the area, such as a small rabbit. Basically, they could become "Critters" to stay hidden in plain sight. =]
- Mages could summon Fire and/or Air elementals.
- Blizzard stated that servers could support 2000-4000 players.
- World of Warcraft budget was about $40-50 million, was being worked on by 60 people over a 3 year period. (Good to know information to separate development costs from all other costs.)

And finally: when asked about possible new races: "There will be playable evil races, very evil races in fact".

I'm not sure what they had planned. Maybe they were just referring to the Undead race, or Horde in general? It's hard to say.. I wouldn't really consider the Horde evil, considering the amount of lore painting them as honorable and misunderstood warriors. If any race was considered evil, it would have to be the Human race considering all of their actions (and how they followed the order's of Azeroth's most evil villain for years). But that's a debate for another day. =]

* UPDATES:

- Confirmation from Warcry that "Calendor" was a typo - they meant to write Kalimdor. Azeroth was still called a continent however.
- Apparently, the Cathedral in Stormwind was to be used for virtual weddings, and Blizzard had plans to rent the space and to buy/send out invitations for players. (Early plans for paid services perhaps?) =]
- Another old mention of monthly content updates "created by an ongoing live development team that continuously designs new lands, quests, and monsters."
- Blizzard planned to have dynamic quests assigned to NPCs on the fly.
- Another funny one: "Every drop can be either used, worn, or used in crafting. Of course some things will be better than others, but there won't be any junk."
- Oh, and of course: Player Housing. =]

Blizzard has been pretty quiet about subscription counts from each country, but there was a time when they officially released subscriber figures. These numbers are based on Blizzard's definition of a "subscriber" by the way and are quite interesting to say the least.

In January 2007, when subscription counts totaled 8 million worldwide (Source):

China: 3.5 million
North America: 2.0 million
Europe: 1.5 million
Remaining Territories: 1.0 million

In January 2008, when subscription counts totaled 10 million worldwide (Source):

China: 4.5 million
North America: 2.5 million
Europe: 2.0 million
Remaining Territories: 1.0 million

You can find other posts on Gamasutra with earlier subscription figures too, but it appears that Blizzard stopped revealing extra subscription count information in 2008.

Based on their growth trends, I think it's safe to say that these estimated projections are fairly accurate for Blizzard's latest (October 2010) 12 million subscriber count:

China: 5.5 million
North America: 3.0 million
Europe: 2.5 million
Remaining Territories: 1.0 million

That's pretty interesting. Keep in mind though that "subscriber" counts don't necessarily mean active players. In China, for example, most players have multiple prepaid cards and accounts (since the game itself is free).

Did you want to hear something really spooky?

Six months ago, I worked on estimating the number of subscribers in China versus worldwide figures. I had previously estimated that "At a rate of $15 per month, that means that there are 6.0 million players" outside of China.

So, out of 11.5 million worldwide, it's about 5.5 million Chinese subscriptions and 6.0 million in NA/EU/Other.

And based on official figures provided by Blizzard, it's about 5.5 million Chinese subscriptions and 6.0 million in NA/EU/Other.

Nice.

It appears that my estimated subscription information has been confirmed by Blizzard themselves. =]

What's even more cool is that I can use the information from their 8 and 10 million subscriber figures to calculate even more interesting stuff about Blizzard's financials. More on that to come later though.

There are lots of ways to do this.. these approaches can take a lot of time of course and some strategies will require that you level characters to approximately their same level. On the flip side, if you want to avoid detection - pay attention to these methods so that you don't accidentally reveal your own alt's names.

Currently, there aren't any WoW Addons that can automatically search names and find alt character names. However, it is a very logical process and there's no reason why an addon couldn't be created that does this (census scripts practically do this already). The reason that there is no "Alt-Tracking addon" is for obvious reasons: there's little need for it and it could be used for nefarious purposes.

Note: I'm going to assume that the reason you're reading this post is because you don't know who they are, you're not actual friends with them, you can't interact with them in the real world, and you don't want them knowing that you're trying to find their alt names.

Starting Out

You'll be using "Add Friend" A LOT starting with their main character (or known alts).

As you build up a list of possible suspects, you'll be tracking their logon/logoff activities until you're 100% certain. Get a pad of paper too.

Keep in mind that a player can have 2-3 characters logged in simultaneously (it's a way to throw off players tracking you) on the same account simply by launching multiple WoW instances. However, there's an approx. 20-30 second delay before the last account gets disconnected. (You may already be aware of this technique for self-buffing your own characters.)

If you know you're being tracked, you can actually keep 2 of your characters "logged in" indefinitely by switching back-and-forth between two WoW.exe instances and logging into your 2 characters every 20 seconds or so. It's very annoying and difficult to tell if they're actually monitoring you though. =]

Real ID

The easiest method, but it's very difficult if you don't want them knowing anything about you. If you can befriend them, and they have Real ID enabled (voluntary activity) then you will have access to their "real name", email address, and all alt character names. Problem is, they'll have full access to your information as well.

If you have a fake WoW account setup, and become really good friends with them, you might be able to convince them to enable Real ID (describe the benefits) to get access to their account details.

Their Character Name

Look for common trends in their name, and use it as a search pattern for other character names once they log off.

Add the possible suspects into your friends lists and see if they logoff/login at the same intervals.

If they have a character named Sinbank, for example, chances are they have an alt with "Sin" in the name.

All of their character names might be 2, 3 or 4 characters long in length for example.

They might favor a certain alt-code in their character name.

All of their characters might have the same subtext: tbone, dogbone, bonesdude, boneym, etc.

All of their characters might be references to the same TV series, movie or novel (Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings references).

All of their character names might have another common trend - like Guild Names (if they created multiple guilds for bank slots), they might be verbs (e.g. jump, shoot, destroy), they might all be related to ego (e.g. godly, godlike, amazing, beautiful, awesome), etc.

Trade Chat

If they have an ego and they're active trade chat users, they can't help but compliment themselves. Watch trade chat (after they log off) and see if someone else continues the conversation or agrees with "that last poster."

If they're in competition with another player, they'll log into an alt and insult the prices of their competitor. "There are better prices on AH." - Meaning their alt or main.

If you know what products they're selling on the AH and they're the lowest sellers, wait about 20 seconds after they logoff and starting posting competitive pricing on Trade Chat (use your disposable toon called ___bank). You might be able to lure them into responding or insulting your prices - or they might even try to buy them from you using their alt. Either way, ignore everyone - but add their names and track them later.

The Battle.net Forums

This is similar to Trade Chat conversations. Use wowarmory.com to find all of their forum posts, and see if any other characters respond to their posts in a positive light. Sometimes players will respond to their own posts under an alt's name to defend themselves. Also, sometimes they forget to change their posting character and will accidentally *BUMP* their own posts.

Their Guild

Use WoWArmory to find out character names that are in their guild. It's very difficult to go through each name to find a likely suspect (unless they have similar character names), it's easier just to find someone in the guild that can invite you and work your way into the guild.

Private message them with your disposable or alt character and join the guild. Hopefully, they won't have strict recruiting policies. Alternatively, you can become friends with their recruiters. There are many techniques to get into a guild, but I'm sure there are plenty of other sources out there. It will take a while to write them all up.

Monitor character names that login/logout based on your target's login/logout trends. If they have any alts in that same guild, you'll immediately discover their names.

If they don't have any alts in the guild, make friends with various players (e.g. help them with professions, farming, providing mats/gold/crafting services, power level their alts, etc.)

After a couple days, start asking questions during periods when you know the player is offline. Ask, "Didn't x have an alt with enchanting? I need a bunch of stuff done and they needed to level it I think". Or, "I'm trying to get a hold of x, does he have any alts online?" etc etc. Get creative. =] Usually someone in the guild will know some of their alt names.

Who They Party With

Monitor who they party with and which dungeons they frequent. Chances are that the same group of players will bring in their alt characters for leveling or farming.

Like I said, your list of friends is going to get really big. You will want to know WHO they frequently associate with, and monitor their activities as well. =]

You might see their level 85 best friend care-bearing a level 55 (with maxed professions) through dungeons or quests. That's a very good suspect.

What They're Wearing

If you get a confirmed list of alt-character names (or best friends), inspect their gear and see if any of the items were crafted by other players. Then, add those players to your Friends List and start the process of elimination again. Players with multiple toons that craft will make their own gear for their own characters and friends, especially if they're trying to save money (e.g. active AH users.)

This is one highly effective method to getting their alt names. Their main, however, will probably be equipped in dungeon-drops, which doesn't help you.

Bait Their Alts/Main Into PVP

It's pretty easy to locate players if you're on the same faction, so use this to your advantage to kill their alts over-and-over. Eventually, they'll login with other toons (or their main) to camp you.

Obviously, this works best with stealth classes since you can safely watch their corpses while hidden (until their other toons show up.)

Since you're not on the same faction (and probably don't want to spend the time logging in and out to see what they're up to), you can still create a macro to determine whether they're logged in or not.

Simply use /invite *enemy player name*

It will either say 'You can't invite them' (meaning they're online) or 'Player Cannot Be Found' (meaning they're offline.)

While We're On That Note: AH PVP

If you're a big AH user and want to eliminate the competition (or simply make life difficult for them), create yourself a high-leveled toon from the opposite faction. A rogue works well.

After you log off, and they log back in to undercut your prices - kill the Auctioneers with your character and vanish. Rinse and repeat whichever Auction House your competitor visits too.

It's also nice if they've just hearthed back to town (you'll know their schedule by now) and they're still flagged for PVP. They'll be so busy with Auction Profit Master running that they won't notice you killing them. They're very easy targets.. not only will you feel better, but while they're corpse-running or waiting for their auctioneers to respawn - that just means more sales for you. =]

Watch the Auction House

Watch all items on the Auction House that their main and known alts post. Find out who crafted them. (They might craft items, but have one single account as the AH poster for example. It's an easy way to find out alt names.)

If they're posting PVP sets that were crafted by other player names, chances are that those are his/her alts.

Watch what they buy/sell on the Auction House, find out as much about their professions as possible. If they're constantly buying out herbs, but they don't have an associated profession, chances are that they have an alt who is a Scribe or Alchemist.

(If they're only buying Azshara and Heartblossom herbs, chances are that they have a 80+ toon who is an Alchemist/Enchanter.)

Once you know the type of mat/item they're primarily interested in, my favorite activity is to post bait items (ie, a honey pot) on the Auction House right after they log out. Wait about 20 minutes to see if someone else quickly snags them up. If their main logs back in, remove the items from auction. And then repeat after they log off again. =]

The other option is to post competing items (undercut) right after the log off for a MUCH better price (you need the user to buy them all out rather than just undercut you). This works really well with Inscription, especially since you'll make a little profit if his/her alts buy them all out. Once again, pull the items when the main logs back in.

Sell Them Services

Once you've established the types of mats they need to buy (e.g. herbs for inks, leather/minerals for crafting, enchants, etc.) offer to be a regular provider for their needs. Create a level 1 character named "Funbank" or "xyzbank", and whisper them saying "Hey you bought a bunch of my herbs the other day.. if you want, I can keep getting them for you and COD them." Establish a fixed rate, and then ask if you should mail directly to them or one of their alts (that does the milling process for example.)

You don't even need to get them anything, just delete your throw-away toon if you wanted.

Or, you could sell them mats that you buy off the AH for cheaper prices, to gain their trust over time. It's also a good icebreaker conversation to get introduced to them, and then at a later date you can start getting more information about them and their other alts.

For example, joining their guild through them, or asking if they have any crafters to help you out (e.g. "Thanks for buying my stuff! Do you have any enchanters that need to level up btw? I have a bunch of (soulbound) gear that needs enchants." or "Can you craft this item?" then when you get the item, you'll see who crafted it.) There are a lot of ways to get them to log into their alts to help you out with something, if it's worth their while.

Creatures of Habit

This works surprisingly well depending on their professions. All players are creatures of habit, and whatever they do on one toon they'll repeat on all of their others.

They might frequent the same spot in Orgrimmar for example, hang out with the same people, frequent the same vendor or Inn. You have to follow them and visually monitor what they do to get an idea of their patterns. They might even login/logoff in the same area with their main and alts. If you see one character logoff next to a mailbox and another one log in - add them as a friend. =]

If you know they have a crafting profession on another toon, hang out next to the trainer / goods vendor / blacksmith / etc and see if a character logs in (or travels to the area) as soon as the main player logs off.

My other favorite process is to watch Jessica Sellers (Ink Trader) in Dalaran. There are hardly any people in Dalaran, and when a player (who posts Glyphs/Cards) logs off and I see a new player login just outside the Scribe shop - there's a 99.9% probability it's their alt. I've caught TONS of players this way and made some amazing discoveries from my competitors. =]

* Update: Relevant training video attached.

When I'm not really researching anything, I'll check Google search history of incoming visitors to get a better idea of the type of stuff people are interested in (but can't find answers anywhere else.)

Mainstream news and information webpages all post the same old regurgitated garbage (plus it's hard to trust some of their information or reviews since the news website's parent company owns a stake in the game developers/publishers that they're writing about ). I like the idea of a small blog on the fringe that archives obscure or hard-to-find information. =]

Anyhow..

Here's a list of search criteria and responses. I'll keep adding to this page whenever I get the chance too.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Q: "how does WoW count active accounts for its number"

A: Here is Blizzard's official statement:

World of Warcraft’s Subscriber Definition

World of Warcraft® subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.

So, it's based on any account that has a paid subscription fee, a first month's subscription, have an active prepaid card, or Game Room players who have accessed the game over the past 30 days.

- A paid subscription fee would include subscriptions that stay active until the end of the month (whether they are being played or not), at which point they become expired or cancelled. If your account gets banned and you purchase a new account during the same month, you had already paid for that first account's month, so it counts as two active subscriptions. (Note: it's estimated that at least 100,000 accounts per month are banned.)
- A first month's subscription is very common, Blizzard even revealed that only 30% of new WoW players make it past level 10. You can also imagine that many of the "first month subscription" accounts are farming/gold trading accounts that are banned (and subsequently recreated) quite frequently.
- "Active Pre-Paid Cards" are very tricky. Pre-paid cards purchased in North America and Europe never expire. You can purchase a card as a gift, and it can sit idle for an entire year without ever being used. Blizzard shouldn't count those as active prepaid cards, though, they would only be considered "active" once the user registers the code online.
- When they say "expired prepaid cards", they mean cards where the time on them has been used up already. (Since the cards don't have a time limit / future expiry date.)
- Pre-paid cards in China also never expire, and you can keep adding time to the card. Many Chinese WOW players have multiple accounts and prepaid cards since the game is free, and it's inexpensive to pay the hourly fees.
- The largest WoW subscriber base is in China (more than NA/Europe combined), and when you consider the massive number of unused pre-paid cards, the number of pre-paid cards per user, and the number of WoW accounts per user, it can completely skew what you define as the total number of worldwide subscribers. It's all about the definition. Blizzard's definition of "active subscribers" is 12 million, but if your definition means "real players", that number might be closer to 4-6 million for example.

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Q: "will blizzard ban you for cross faction transferring gold"

A: Nope, feel free to do as much Cross-Faction trading as you want. But watch out for Neutral Auction House "snipers". Some users have bots monitoring the Neutral AH scanning expensive items and quickly buying them.

Install Auctioneer and make sure to enable the Quick Buyout feature. As soon as you post the item, just buy it out quickly on the second account. If you do it within 3 seconds, you won't have to worry about being sniped.

Sniping is perfectly legitimate, but botting is not. Test them out using bait items (ie, gems) and see if it's an automated activity (ie, sniping over several hours) and report them.

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Q: "wow ban whole account or char"

A: The entire account gets banned.. it might be temporary or permanent (Blizzard will send you an email to identify which). If it gets perma-banned, feel free to create a new account with the same IP address, computer, and billing information.. Blizzard doesn't care.

If you're using multiple accounts for botting/exploitation, however, you'll want to keep information unique on each account.

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Q: "finding out if a player has alts on wow"

A: I've created a new post about that activity: link.

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Q: "if i bu the digital cata do i have to install classic"

A: Yes. You need all of the previous expansion packs to play Cataclysm. The Digital Cataclysm download is actually just the 4.0 patch, so you would already have it installed if you had TBC and WOTLK. You really just need the buy the expansion pack to unlock new content/features for your account.

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Q: "when do we know when new realms are coming up in World of Warcraft"

A: New realms as part of "Cataclysm growth" would include the months up to around May 2011. When WOTLK was released in November 2008, new realms were created in January and March of the following year. If there are no new realms by Feb/Mar, it's a strong sign of declining subscriptions.

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Q: "when you buy cataclysm do you get game time"

A: No. You have to purchase the expansion pack and purchase additional game time to continue.

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Q: "does the digital upgrade to burning crusade include a month subscription?"

A: Nope, same with Cataclysm. The expansion packs never included a free month's subscription unfortunately.

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Q: "where's my free month with cataclysm?"

A: Sorry, you don't get a free month with Cataclysm. =[

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Q: "death knight overpowered cataclysm"

A: Yup, but they'll be nerfed within a few months after Christmas. Blizzard did the same thing with WOTLK after Christmas/New Years sales dwindled.

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Q: "why hasn't free wow servers upgraded to the new patch?"

A: Cataclysm is still very new - it launched just last month. Have patience.. it might take another few months (there are very few programmers developing those private servers). Even regular content updates can have a 2-4 month lag.

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Q: "does blizzard look at your ip when gold buying?"

A: They can see your IP, but they really don't care. If you get banned, just create a new account from the same IP address. Gold selling/buying in WoW is actually pretty safe - it's when people REPORT you (or associated accounts) that accounts get banned.

If you're transferring gold with a gold farming account, you might get banned by association if someone has reported them for exploitation, botting, or farming.

Blizzard's wants to provide a pleasant customer service experience, so most of their activities are in response to complaints (not proactive monitoring and policing). They don't go out looking for trouble, unless it's affecting someone's game-play experience.

The only other thing they have is place is automated software detection (Warden) and server side metrics. Reporting is far more effective however.

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Q: "do first day sales include preorders?"

A: Yes, Blizzard incorporated preorders into their last Expansion Pack sales figures as well. Cataclysm "first day sales" also included Digital Downloads and the first 3 days of sales in NA/Europe/Asia/etc.

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Q: "what happens if blizzard catches you botting?"

A: You might get a temporary or permanent ban. Botting is pretty safe as long as no one catches and reports you. If you're botting, you should always be sitting near the computer to monitor (ie, whispers, other players in the area).

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Q: "what happens to my characters if i get banned wow"

A: If it's a permanent ban, they're all gone for good. You can create a new account though with the same billing information, Blizzard just banned that one account. You can appeal the decision (low probability) - mmowned.com has some strategies on getting accounts unbanned. It really just depends on who you talk to though.

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Q: "why doesnt blizzard ban botters"

A: Blizzard does ban botters quite frequently, but you have to REPORT THEM. Blizzard doesn't pro-actively police WoW (they don't have enough resources available) and they rely on players reporting the activity.

Once you create a support ticket, it will typically take 2-4 days before anyone even READS the ticket. Once they read the ticket, it gets sent into another queue. It might take a week or two before they even investigate the account. They will monitor the player for a short amount of time (as there are MANY other accounts that need investigation), and come back to them later if they don't see any botting/exploitation.

Keep in mind that there are a lot of FALSE botting reports too. Invisible node theft, for example, might just be a normal player in a different phase.

Blizzard can tell right away if a player is botting/cheating though (player statistics for example reveal a lot), but they need to be caught red-handed when botting (sometimes they make mistakes though, but it's rare). Once that happens, Blizzard's judgement is swift and decisive.

It's just like racial epithets in Trade Chat - it's completely against policy and Blizzard WILL ban players for this type of activity, but it HAS TO BE REPORTED!

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Q: "alchemy specializations 4.0.1 removed"

A: The icon's were removed in 4.0.1, but the specializations still existed. (I can confirm that transmutations still worked back then, even though "Transmutation Specialist" wasn't in my spell book anymore.)

In the latest patch, though, your alchemy specialization should be fully visible in your Professions tab.

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Q: "percentage of WOW player races"

A: You can find that kind of census information for NA/EU on Warcraftrealms.com.

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Q: "starcraft 2 13 million digital sales"

A: SC2 sold 1.8 million copies on the first day (excluding Korea). Figures include both Pre-Sales, Retail, and Digital Purchases.

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Q: "is there a way to keep your real id friends from knowing your on"

A: Unfortunately, no. Simply remove them as Real ID friends and give them a really good excuse so that they're not offended.

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Q: "world of warcraft player figures inaccurate"

A: Yeah, no kidding. Look at my earlier posts of actual WoW subs.

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Q: "world of warcraft retention rate"

A: Blizzard stated that only 30% of new World of Warcraft players make it past level 10.

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Q: "will blizzard ban for sending large amounts of gold"

A: Depends on the amount, but it has been known to happen. For example, purchasing a 150,000G item on the Auction House can result in a ban. It depends on the investigator and sometimes it's just for large "unusual" purchases that are outside of norms. Other times, it's for purchasing an item from an account linked to gold farming/selling (but it's impossible for you to know this.) I wouldn't recommend transferring more than 50k gold at a time if it's for a friend.

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Q: "I bought cataclysm from blizzard can I install it in 2nd pc"

A: Yes, you can install it on multiple PCs and login with your account on any one of them. You can also login to your WoW account from a friend's PC (or an internet cafe), since they'll all be running the same updated version. (Be wary of key-loggers on the PCs that you use however.)

After you install World of Warcraft, all of the Expansion Packs, and the latest patches, you can should make a backup of the entire WOW Install Folder. You can make WOW portable, and even copy this folder to anywhere you want and run it. You never need to reinstall WOW and you can save yourself hours of work.

You can also copy the WOW folder to a USB Portable Harddrive, and run WOW from the harddrive (full resolution, no issues). That way, your WOW install (and all plugins/interface configurations) can be "on the go" with you wherever you go.

There, I said it.

Free "One-Way" Faction Changes are desperately needed. ("One-Way" meaning that you can only switch factions to side with the small population.)

Almost all realms are imbalanced - they're a complete and utter mess. It's a worldwide WoW issue too and it's not just limited to NA or EU realms.

Blizzard designed WoW to be balanced and they're constantly making minor changes to keep this balance. Because of this symmetry, if something is not balanced it causes a domino effect on all other facets of the world.

- Tol Barad and Wintergrasp are brutal and almost impossible to join. 30 people can join out of 1000 waiting every 2 hours. And it doesn't even matter how early you queue. Nice.
- 30-120 minutes wait times to join a Battleground, only to find out you're outnumbered 15:10.
- So much wasted time and customer frustration. In some cases, even scaring them away from WoW completely.
- PVP growth rates (ie honor gain, collecting gear, etc) are imbalanced, giving an unfair advantage to factions with smaller populations.
- The imbalances have completely reshaped the culture of players: what they do, where they go, what items to make, what to sell items for, what to gather, which guilds to join, who to interact with, who or which areas to avoid, etc.
- Population imbalances effect markets and economies, completely destroying the value of gold and player professions on one side. They're probably doing more harm than gold farmers ever could.

In essence, you're penalized for wanting to join groups or find more friends. Blizzard constantly encourages socialization and joining guilds, but they don't show the fine print.

"Hey guys! Invite your friends! Join Guilds! Socialize! Oh by the way, you'll pay dearly for it."

If by design the World of Warcraft was supposed to be balanced for everything to work properly, why is Blizzard performing several _other_ balancing acts, but not where it matters the most? This is the one item that they're not doing anything seriously about. The only difference between this balancing act and the others is that there's potential profit involved. It's the only reason I can fathom that they're not opening up Free Faction Changes.

The "World" is definitely not working the way it was envisioned and designed. There are constant patchwork jobs for something that's NOT working as intended and yet there's an available fix nearby. Hell, Blizzard.. at least do an experiment to see if it actually works or not! Test it out on one realm, as a "special gift" or "anniversary reward". You'll shut me up (and the others) if it doesn't work.

I'd love to move all of my characters over to the other faction just so that I can PVP again. But there's no way in hell I'll be paying $600.00 USD to do it.

Recently, a U.S. Senator called out the University of California, Irvine on their shameless waste of tax payer's money "studying" World of Warcraft.

Walt Scacchi, a research director at UCI in response stated that "They absolutely don't get what we're doing". This study can only benefit mankind right? I mean.. playing World of Warcraft SAVES LIVES man. They're heroes!

What I didn't understand, though, was that they called World of Warcraft the "World's Most Popular MMORPG". I suppose everyone interprets the definition of a "MMORPG" differently.. and even the whole definition of "subscribers" is pretty flexible.

WoW is certainly very popular in Irvine CA and the rest of the Americas.. but the entire world? I suppose it is popular in some areas of the world due to the massive amount of money Blizzard invests in promotion.. so, it's "very well known". But most popular? Does popular mean most amount of players? I'm assuming so.

So, let's see how WoW holds up against other MMORPG subscriber counts worldwide. Here are some of the largest MMORPG's by population or "popularity" that have listed their subscription figures:

Dungeons and Dragons Online - 2 Million
Knight Online - 4.25 Million
Flyff - 5 Million
Guild Wars - 6 Million
Metin2 - 7 Million
Gaia Online - 8 Million
Lineage 1 - 10 Million
Free Realms - 12 Million
World of Warcraft - 12 Million
Wizard 101 - 15 Million
Silkroad Online - 18 Million
Lineage 2 - 20 Million
Second Life - 20 Million
Dofus - 30 Million
MU Online - 40 Million
DarkOrbit - 50 Million
Perfect World - 50 Million
Scions of Fate - 50 Million
Ragnarok Online - 60 Million
Farmville - 80 Million
Westward Journey Online II - 86 Million
Maple Story - 100 Million
RuneScape - 130 Million
Dungeon Fighter Online - 200 Million

All of these numbers are certainly debatable, but these are the official subscribers counts.. apparently.

So in the end, I wouldn't necessarily call WoW the "World's Most Popular MMORPG". When I heard "World's Most Popular MMORPG" I immediately thought of Maple Story and RuneScape actually. Therefore, it would be much more appropriate and accurate to call it "The Most Well Known Non-Free Non-Browser Client-Based 3D Fantasy MMORPG In Some Parts of the World."

Maybe "World's Most Popular MMORPG" is a trademark or a registered company name that Blizzard owns. You know, like McDonald's "100% Pure Beef" marketing strategy. It's written on their packaging, but "100% Pure Beef" is really just the name of the company that manufactures the processed meat. It doesn't actually MEAN the meat is 100% pure beef though. =]