LOTRO, another alternative for WoW in China?

Hey all,

While surfing the net, looking for usefull numbers I found this one, already a month old, but still news to me :

http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=157317_0_5_0_M

With 2,9 million registered users in alpha a 3000 PCU per server and ready to be deployed server farm to support 100 shards, Lord of the Rings Online shows potential to become a worldwide player. If the 100 shards get medium to high populated then we can expect around 1 million Chinese players / subscriptions.

This is of course speculation, but it is nice to see there is interest in another Western MMO.

Meanwhile, WoW is back fully operational since sept. 19, but there seems to be a power struggle between several Chinese government organisations, most notably the MoC and the GAPP, to gain control over the lucrative and prestigious Online Gaming sector.

The GAPP says it did not gave green light for WoW:The Burning Crusade, while the MoC did gave permission to Netease to run the game commercially.

To me it looks like the GAPP ( the ones that want to close down WoW again ) will be on the short end of the stick, as the central government gave MoC more jurisdiction and the GAPP less, concerning online games.

http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=158547_0_5_0_M

Either way, the biggest loss is for Netease and the Chinese WoW players, I hope for them that it will get sorted out sooner rather than later.

MMOData Charts version 2.3 Live !

Hey all,

MMOData Charts version 2.3 is live !

Version 2.1-2.3 notes :

- Majorly revised datapoints for Dofus.
- Added datapoints for EVE Online ( both PCU and Subs )
- Removed some datapoints for EVE Online to make the chart less cluttered.
- Added datapoint for SWG.
- Revised / Added datapoints for Aion.
- Added datapoint for DAoC.
- Slightly revised estimated datapoint for WAR.
- Removed a datapoint for Everquest that looked like an anomaly.
- Revised / Added datapoints for Ultima Online.
- Removed some datapoints for Ultima Online to make the chart less cluttered.
- Revised datapoint for FFXI
- Added datapoint for Pirates of the Burning Sea
- Added PCU datapoint for Dofus
- Added PCU datapoints for Fantasy Westward Journey
- Removed incorrect PCU datapoint for Zhengtu
- Rearranged the mmo's and charts, charts are now : 1m-12m, 150k-1m, 40k-150k, 0-40k.
- Expanded the PCU chart to 2,6m to accomodate Fantasy Westward Journey.
- Removed Dungeon Fighter Online from MMOData.net because it was not in line with the MMO definition.
- Revised accuracy ratings for : PotBS, SWG and Dofus.
- Moved the Source links into comments to datapoints in the excel and cleaned them up, for now the source links will no longer be public until I have time to put them back.
- Renamed Accuracy Rating and Source Links into MMO and Accuracy List.
- Added MMOG Contribution chart.
- Removed Top10 chart, this may return again later.
- Renamed PCU : Single Cluster Servers into PCU : Largest Shards.
- Placed "MMOData.net" and version number on the charts.
- Replaced macros with build-in functions ( internal ).
- Changed the look of the datapoints on the charts.
- Moved away from uniform colors across charts.
- Made various other cosmetic changes.
- Made various other internal changes.