World of Warcraft Slips Further

[Anjel]

I'm not going to hate on World of Warcraft, I had a good few years out of the game and had fun in doing so and it makes me laugh when I see people say "I played WoW for 6 years, it's shit and I hope they all die" - you played for 6 years you idiot, couldn't have been that bad.

Okay so I have issues with it's direction since TBC. Vanilla was great, TBC was awesome, WotLK was too easy, Cata is too time-consuming. All personal opinions, of course. I also have issues with the whole "anonymity of the internet" thing turning people into douchebags.

I can handle an expansion that is too easy, may have a little moan about it, but Cata took too much of my valuable time and so did the dicks and trolls so I kicked my MMO habit and am now playing 'single player/multiplayer with friends' games. Do I think WoW will finally kick the bucket? I wouldn't rule it out. Do I want to see WoW kick the bucket? Nope, the more money they make off of WoW the more money they can pump into new stuff - Diablo expansions and Titan (whatever the hell that is!).

All personal opinion. So don't hate on me.

 

[Atmos Duality]

You state the obvious well, but the point wasn't so much an issue of why, but that you're still pissing blind and calling it a good thing.

I have to state the obvious when people routinely refuse to see it right in front of them.

I see the removal of grind from their lives as a good effect, no matter what the cause is.
Other bad effects may result as a consequence, but this does not change the removal of grind as a good effect (if you hate grind, anyway).

 

[Aeshi]

You state the obvious well, but the point wasn't so much an issue of why, but that you're still pissing blind and calling it a good thing.

I have to state the obvious when people routinely refuse to see it right in front of them.

I see the removal of grind from their lives as a good effect, no matter what the cause is.
Other bad effects may result as a consequence, but this does not change the removal of grind as a good effect (if you hate grind, anyway).

As opposed to the Grind that's in every other game?

 

[Ashley Blalock]

Perhaps people are getting tired of about the time you are happy with the game Blizzard wants to snatch the rug out from under you because you are playing the game like you want to instead of how Blizzard wants you to play.

Vanilla WoW you could enjoy exploring around and doing thing on your own because the game didn't try to force anyone into Battlegrounds, dungeons, and raiding was a nice little extra for the hard core gamer that wanted to go a little farther than everyone else.

But then Blizzard got the rather odd idea that you had to do things and even if you liked something too bad you need to be doing what Blizzard wants you to do. Solo play forget that you have to raid or hey you like Battlefields well too damn bad you have to play our horrible Arena system.

Plus the expansions feel a bit like your house has been burned down and you have to start all over again. All that work to max out your level is gone because the level cap has gone up. All that work to get really nice gear is gone because the expansion makes your old gear into junk. Crafting, yea all your old stuff is just worthless junk thanks to the expansion and heavens forbid you have to grind out a crafting skill from zero.

I loved vanilla WoW and I put in a lot of fun hours playing the game, but the more they expand and change the less it seems like the game I fell in love with. Just not crazy about going back only to have all my hard work go to waste with the next expansion or feel like I'm being forced to play in a particular way.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

WoW is just old technology that can't compete with the new stuff that is out.

No physics engine, no gibs, no death animations, no responsiveness from enemies or players when they are hit.

WoW had a great run but they need to move on with a modern engine.

 

[Sagacious Zhu]

Anyone want to start a WOW deathpool? Unless they really start attracting new customers, I give it another eighteen months tops

 

[fragmaster09]

'it's the biggest subscription-based MMO in the world'...

*sigh* would that be because it's one of the ONLY subscription-based MMO's in the world?
seeing as how MOST MMO's are either F2P with a monthly subscription(other than WoW, the only real competitor being Runescape), or the ones that are free but have those genius things called Microtransactions like Nexon's Cash Shop for Maplestory

 

[vfaulkon]

Blizzard and Blizzard fans love to delude themselves as to why subscriber numbers are falling.

They're both entirely wrong.

...

And then Blizzard puts out press releases stating the 'reasons' for the subscriber drops, all of which are totall bullshit.

Well, I guess we're done here, people. Everyone pack it up, Daemonate has it all figured out. All the official press releases and conjecture we've come up is total bullshit, so let's all turn out attention to Daemonate and hear his/her wisdom. Please, kind sir/madam, share with us more of the knowledge of the gaming universe, as clearly you know more about what's wrong with everything than the people who make the game or the people who still play it. I'm just dying to hear more!

*rolls eyes*

Y'know, you had me 'til the quoted parts. You lost interest with the game because the parts you liked were changed. Fair enough, I'll buy that. Heck, some people agree with you, I'm sure. But don't go stating your opinion is fact, alright? And quit talking like Activision-Blizzard is intentionally trying to put up a smokescreen with spun press releases; you sound like a conspiracy theorist.

The number decline could be due to any number of reasons, some of which may not even be related to the game. It's not dropping JUST because they changed what you liked, just like it's not JUST because the game's been around awhile or other games are starting to crop up.

You can't just read numbers and assume that you know exactly what's wrong and why it happened, no one can. Losing 800,000 people in a quarter sounds big until you compare it to the 12-million-strong subscriber base. 800,000 isn't even 7% of that, so while it qualifies as a chunk of the player base, it's hardly going to rock Actiblizz down to their core. Combine that with how many players claim to cancel their subscription over really stupid nonsense and how easy it is to join back up, and it's easy to see that one bad quarter means precisely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

WoW isn't 'dying', it's not 'doomed'. It had a bad quarter. For all we know, MoP could be released and their numbers will spike again, or it could be the deathknell that causes a true mass exodus. Heck, Christmas may boost the sales back up when all of the players who quit realize that spending time with their families drives them insane and they go diving back into the digital world, who knows?

 

[Timmons]

the new asian themed expansion is just blizzard saying to the asian subscribers "pleaase come back, pwetty please, we'll even make an expansion based on your culture just to prove how much we love you"

oh yeah and i love the irony of the pandarens getting lots of food related racial abilities and lore (seeing as panda's irl are very fussy eaters)

 

[MammothBlade]

That's alot of subscribers to lose... but people too often attribute it to terminal decline, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People think that WoW is dying off, and more and people decide to jump ship because of the mistaken belief that they will be left out because other people are moving onto greener pastures...

It has alot to do with subscriber turnover and the product cycle. Some people are indeed getting bored with WoW. They are leaving, because for some reason or other, they've found other things to occupy their time or just aren't interested in WoW currently. Some will be long-term subscribers, others will be newer players who feel that the game doesn't appeal to them anymore. WoW has reached market saturation and losing net subscribers is an inevitable thing at this point. Yet it can still maintain a healthy player turnover if it keeps up efforts to a) maintain the loyalty of current subscribers and b) ensure that there is a healthy player intake and turnover. It probably isn't set for much growth at the rate of market saturation, but it can maintain its position.

I don't even play WoW, this is just outsider speculation.

 

[Gamblerjoe]

Only 10.3 million subscribers @ $15.00 a month? Poor bastards.

As much as seeing WoW crumble and die would restore a modicum of my faith in humanity, It's not going to happen any time soon. Their new expansion will come out, their subscriptions will reach another all time high, the hardcores will beat the content, then the average players will beat the content, then subscriptions will drop again. While this is happening, they will use their money bins to work on the next expansion to rinse and repeat.

Blizzard and Activision are the masters of the Skinner box, and they have plenty of money for R&D. On top of making the next expansion take longer to beat, they have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to keep players playing.

 

[Atmos Duality]

As opposed to the Grind that's in every other game?

Your gross-exaggeration fails to even remotely address the point.
Not all games have needless grind in them. Not even a majority of games have grind.

 

[Ickorus]

I think WoW needs to go all in with this social gaming thing it's trying to capture, if they added some proper social media elements (Perhaps by having full Facebook integration) and dropped the subscription fees in favour of a cash shop I think they would be able to stem the flow and probably become an even bigger behemoth than it is now.

It's a risk but I think if they don't make some big changes to their model now the game will lose it's chance to bounce back.

 

[Rijo]

After Deathwing i know am walking away for awhile. (May just skip the panda thing after that comes out to, but normally i always get bored and go back to it. Being its the only game thats kind of fun and runs "ok" on my P.O.S Laptop. Tho i could spot wield steel with my side air-vent with it running.

 

[Daemonate]

Blizzard and Blizzard fans love to delude themselves as to why subscriber numbers are falling.

They're both entirely wrong.

...

And then Blizzard puts out press releases stating the 'reasons' for the subscriber drops, all of which are totall bullshit.

Well, I guess we're done here, people. Everyone pack it up, Daemonate has it all figured out. All the official press releases and conjecture we've come up is total bullshit, so let's all turn out attention to Daemonate and hear his/her wisdom. Please, kind sir/madam, share with us more of the knowledge of the gaming universe, as clearly you know more about what's wrong with everything than the people who make the game or the people who still play it. I'm just dying to hear more!

*rolls eyes*

Y'know, you had me 'til the quoted parts. You lost interest with the game because the parts you liked were changed. Fair enough, I'll buy that. Heck, some people agree with you, I'm sure. But don't go stating your opinion is fact, alright? And quit talking like Activision-Blizzard is intentionally trying to put up a smokescreen with spun press releases; you sound like a conspiracy theorist.

The number decline could be due to any number of reasons, some of which may not even be related to the game. It's not dropping JUST because they changed what you liked, just like it's not JUST because the game's been around awhile or other games are starting to crop up.

You can't just read numbers and assume that you know exactly what's wrong and why it happened, no one can. Losing 800,000 people in a quarter sounds big until you compare it to the 12-million-strong subscriber base. 800,000 isn't even 7% of that, so while it qualifies as a chunk of the player base, it's hardly going to rock Actiblizz down to their core. Combine that with how many players claim to cancel their subscription over really stupid nonsense and how easy it is to join back up, and it's easy to see that one bad quarter means precisely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

WoW isn't 'dying', it's not 'doomed'. It had a bad quarter. For all we know, MoP could be released and their numbers will spike again, or it could be the deathknell that causes a true mass exodus. Heck, Christmas may boost the sales back up when all of the players who quit realize that spending time with their families drives them insane and they go diving back into the digital world, who knows?

Way to misinterpret me dipshit.
I gave my opinion on why WoW is failing. You are free to point out that my extrapolation from my, and everyone I know's, experience is a mathematically insignificant anecdote, though I would have thought that's self evident.

But 'conspiracy theorist'? Erm, no...there's no conspiracy, I just think they are disconnected from reality. They put out press releases and statements that bear no connection what I have experienced as the problems that are driving away customers. Concerns that have been voiced by my friends, guildmates, countless people on countless websites and forums. We aren't whiners, we don't have a stake anymore - we're long lost customers, we stopped paying when they stopped delivering what they originally promised for several years. And yet they are still chasing the wrong reasons for the slow downturn.

The evidence to back up my anecdote is simply - they haven't stopped the rot, and they think tehy are going to by releasing expansions every 6 months. I have a newsflash for them - you can only live by conquest and plunder for so long, so slashing and burning your current fanbase to interest newcomers is a limited strategy, just like milking annual iterations of CoD is a limited strategy. They are in for a rude financial awakening.

And WoW hasn't had a bad quarter, it's on it's (very slow) way down. It's peaked, with 11m subs. It's had the biggest drop offs it's ever had, consecutively. It's jumped the shark, with Panda expansion. The writing is on the wall, but it's the Titanic, and it will take a long time to sink. You are free to disagree, but I think it's just denial from a fanboy.

 

[dsawyers9]

I'm part of the first wave of 800,00 WoW leavers and damn proud of it. I cold turkey that game and I have to say: It feels good.

I mean, I played one of the red headed step child classes; aka Shaman, and why should I play a game which the company refuses to fix my class after 3 expansions? Screw them. I'm a player for balance and WoW was everything but that.

I hope more people leave, but all those WoW players stay away from my current and future games since I still would like to enjoy those without loser Trolls trying to ruin my games:
League of Legends has already started to pull these Trolls into their forums, so with that said:
Stay away from Diablo 3 you damn Trolls. Go play SWTOR and ruin that game for that company. Still liked Rift and I still think it was far better than what WoW became, however, they were too focused on proving they were better than WoW by using WoW lingo.

 

[El Tigre11]

I was thinking about giving up too, mainly because of the gold farmers and the economy on my server was all messed up, but then I found this gold guide http://topmmostrat.com/reviews/?p=7 and now I can finally enjoy playing wow again.