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So I was checking out WOWS again just to see their progress in beta. Couldn't help but notice the amount of regions they have accessible. Emphasis on WOWS being currently on beta.
Whilst over at WOWP, there seems to be a lack in numbers of accessible regions. WOWP however has been in development since what... 3-4 years now?
Sigh...
I placed this thread in the suggestions for reasons which I pray this gets forwarded to WGRU for consideration. Hopeful? You bet. As skeptical as I am about WOWP, I'm willing to place my faith on WGRU. Things I will provide in this thread (Although they are mostly opinionated): Resource Material, Factors affecting Lack in Regions, Future possible Q&As towards Accessibility in Regions.
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Resource Materal (2012-2013)
- The most obvious one is the WOWP ASIA Portal. What this portal has: A 2013 Gamescom trailer, About WOWP Info (outdated), Gallery (10+ HD pics), Games Honors (PC Mag, IGN, MMORPG, gohard(?), VG Network), and ofcourse a "Coming Soon". Guess not as soon as they thought 3 years later.
- Facebook - World of Warplanes Asia - Latest comment? December 18th, 2013. Nothing else can be said about this FB page other than a few images, 2k+ likes annnd... yep that's it. Good effort.
- Wargaming Interview - Sheds light in Asia & Ocenic Expansion plans: This article is so old it's not even worth mentioning. They even have news about WOWS during that time. But there are 2 Q&As that is worth pointing that is partially related to WOWP (or was):
Q: Now that you have expanded to Southeast Asia, is Wargaming looking to expand further into other countries?
A: We have really expanded out of the SEA region with Singapore as the regional hub. We are looking at countries such as New Zealand, Australia, and also Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The SEA server, located in Singapore, has no IP blocks for all these places, as long as users have a stable connection.
Q: Will these countries be having their own dedicated servers?
A: All of these regions will be playing in the SEA server.
It's pretty interesting that WG back in 2012, had a definite plan (or "vision") to expand to SEA but looking at these Q&As they never really specified whether the plans to expand to Asia & Oceania included WOWP. The second Q&A is even more vague. "All of these regions" could imply for both WOT & WOWP but chances are they were probably referring to WOT only at the time.
That's about all I can find. In terms of recent news & updates about WOWP SEA in 2015? Doesn't exist. Unfortunately. They've left a pretty wide gap between 2013-2015. You have to wonder what happened in between those 2 years. The WOWP ASIA portal is evidence to this lack in information. That portal has been stagnant since 2013. Why it hasn't been updated since now... only WG can answer that mystery.
There is however an un-official WOWP region in China not owned by WG but infact by Kongzhong. WOWP Kongzhong China was a pretty big hit in china during release. I was fortunate enough to try out their region for a short amount of time just to see how their game progressed & the amount of population they had. Their numbers rivaled EU & RU with a Que totaling 100 players every 10 seconds. You can imagine how quick those battles would be pulled. After 1.5 however, they too were affected by the poor performance of that awful patch. I don't know much since then but I believe they are still ongoing.
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Here comes the opinionated part of the thread. The factors that I think limited or changed WG's plan to expand to SEA, Oceania and other locations.
- Bad Reputation in beta: Reviews skewed towards the negative. Player reviews anyway. Spreading the word of how poorly designed WOWP was. YouTubers who were also beta testing WOWP gave their feedback in video format which caught alot of attention and worsened the hype for WOWP.
I find this interesting because you see these Game reviews from reputable organizations such as Metacritic, Gamespot, Googleplay, MMORPG, VG Revolution, Game Revolution, The Golden Plume, 9Lives, EGA, where their reviews are mostly positive. If this was the case, why is WOWP regarded as one of the worst Aviation MMO to date (2015)? Why is WOWP not grabbing the attention of the arcade aviation fans? Where is all this hype and exposure? They must be reviewing a completely different game!
- Bad Reception during release: Because the release of WOWP was rushed (everyone saw it coming), players shunned WOWP like a plague. Well not exactly like a plague. Initially for a couple months WOWP (Nov-Feb) rose in activity in the thousands of interested aviation fanatics & other general gamers including those that came from WOT. It showed in the population count online (RU: 12k+, EU: 5k+, NA: 3k+). Then for some reason these counts dwindled away in a gradual decline over the months of 2014. The end result is what we now see in 2015.
- Loss in profits: This could be for any number of reasons. But it is pretty obvious to see from a customer's perspective that WG didn't do so well with WOWP in gaining as much profits as they could during release. Even now they struggle. This may have affected their future plans including the future expansions to SEA as we can all imagine how expensive it would be to maintain many regions in the eastern side of the world. Yet WOWS does it with ease.
- Overall change in plans: Who knows what happened in between 2012-2015. Maybe the poor design of WOWP affected their decision to expand. Maybe they just didn't have the investment to pull it off. Maybe it was the damage done to WG's reputation with WOWP. This really needs to be clarified. Leaving something like this in the dark for so long is not acceptable in the MMO industry. Especially if you state that you "are" going to accomplish said plans and then find out later that it is no longer the case and would rather leave it un-addressed. It's a simple case of poor communication. And something tells me this was done deliberately for a reason. A reason that deserves an explanation from WG after all these years.
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And here are the possible future Q&As about Regions Accessibility for WOWP that WGRU may or may not include (I really do hope they do include them):
1. What happened to the WOWP Asia Portal? Are there still plans to expand WOWP to SEA? Is the WOWP Asia portal going to be updated in 2015?
2. Why has it taken so long for WOWP to increase its accessibility in many different regions around the world, when WOWS already has 5 distinct regions to choose including Asia? Even WoT has Asia but not WOWP?
3. Is there any interest in WOWP in SEA & Oceania regions?
4. If there were general interest in WOWP in the SEA & Oceania Regions, wouldn't it make sense to expand due to the increase in revenue from these regions?
5. Is expanding WOWP to SEA too costly? Does WG need a kickstarter to launch WOWP to SEA & Oceania?
That's about all the question I can think of that is important to ask towards WGRU. I am completely surprised at how readily available WOT & WOWS is in the eastern part of the world. And this is not even news. Just completely baffled at the fact that out of the 3 games, WOWP is left out for some unknown reason that is yet to be revealed.
If WG is looking for options to increase their profits for WOWP, this would be it. But they would have to put alot of effort in advertising WOWP in the east if they are to ever achieve the same amount of hype in RU. If WG can achieve that kind of activity in the SEA & Oceania region then profits for WOWP will soar. Not to mention how much this would help in reviving NA as a region since well... you now have more money to fix the issues that has been left for 2 and a half years in NA that will consequently improve the population. This is an idealistic view I must admit but for WG to consider such options in the near future they have to dream "big" instead of facing reality and not doing anything about the current issues faced with NA, and only tending to their lone successor which is RU. It's quite an insult to be honest. If you treated your customers like this in any regular business in the real world, you would get the sac immediately. Say byebye to your beloved Wargaming title. But since this revolves around the MMO industry, little [edits] can be given and nobody would do a thing about it.
TL;DR (because lazy people don't want to read a wall of text)
There has been no word of WOWP Asia. WG has not addressed this for over 3 years. It's pretty important that WG give an explanation why their plans in the past didn't come to fruition for WOWP. And I hope they consider the Q&As and actually answer them in a direct manner.
Edited by ArrowZ_, 09 May 2015 - 02:55 AM.
