World of Warcraft Subscriptions Continue to Slide

[Erana]

How about instead of solely catering to the 'end-game' crowd. We actually have a content patch that has something for the little guy whose still levelling?

Cataclysm in my eyes is one of the best expansions so far if only because it gave me new things to do while I levelled.

Now, it's fucking boring again because I've seen it all... Again.

I realise it's easier to update with new, level-capped content because it's at the end, it can just be added on.

But just adding in the occasional new quest for those still on their way to 85 wouldn't hurt.

Why not spend some time slowly re-working content from previous expansions?
I'm not saying reboot it all entirely, maybe just have a look at some of the quests and re-work them to more fit the style you've currently got?

I know that whenever I level a new character I dread hitting level 58 because I know I can only put off going to Outland for another 2 levels.

With some refreshed content in Outland I probably wouldn't feel like I have to slog through PuGs for ten levels...

This is what really, really bugs me. I feel like too much attention is paid to expansions instead of focusing on developing for the current state of the Warcraft universe.
I mean, if they took all the effort they put into Cataclysm and just kept rolling with constant additional content for the Lich King arc and endgame content, they could better deal with the disappointment of the top-tier equipment being outranked by leveling quest rewards one level later.
They could also have gotten the entire world on one chronological page. *cough*Outlands and Draenei*cough*

Inb4 the WoW haters show up shouting victory for X mmo as dethroning the giant.

I think the problem might be that there are veteran players who just got burnt out with the game. Hell I know at the end of Wrath I was so burnt out I let my subscription lapse and haven't really felt like going back. It's another expansion which means another year or two of grinding to the top of content only to have the board reset again with the next one. After going through vanilla, BC, and Wrath I just didn't feel like doing it anymore.

Despite the big revamps in Cataclysm it's still the same game, and the players who've been around for a long time are probably getting bored with the same old grind of content patterns.

-EDIT-

I don't know, I'm a six year veteran of WoW and for some reason Cataclysm just isn't "doing it" for me. I don't know what it is exactly but there just feels like something is missing. I know a lot of guild members are saying the same thing. We can't put our finger on it but something that was there in the previous three chapters just isn't there any longer.

I think what's missing is that their big bad guy isn't one with lots of rep outside of novels. Though I'm not sure how well that stands up, Illdian got lots of his back story from the War of the Ancients novels. (at least the parts that made him into more of a tragic figure than he already was)

Another thing could be that Arthas was a pretty big and epic target for us to kill. I mean we have to face it, Deathwing just doesn't measure up in the depth/badass department of Arthas, he's just kind of a "bleh", flat villain.

I totally agree KeyMaster,

I don't think its a coincidence that the interest has started to decline after the last bit of content that was directly related to the other Warcraft games was used. I remember the announcement of Cataclysm and my first question was "Who the heck is Deathwing?" It took me awhile to figure out he actually was in Warcraft II, and it took reading the novels to finally feel up to date with what was going on. I was emotionally attached to the stories of Illidan and Arthas, but Deathwing (and perhaps anything else they come up with) just isn't cutting it. If I'm not emotionally attached then all the flaws start to show and it becomes just old hat.

Taking Deathwing seriously?

Spoiler: I just.... No.

How am I supposed to feel like this is a threat that can defeat Ysera?

 

[infohippie]

On a side note: The gaming industry has been run by the accountants for far too long.

Every industry has been run by the accountants for far too long.

 

[Random Fella]

Cataclysm unbalanced the character classes, they nerfed/changed the play style of some stable classes making them harder to play while boosting other classes making them way to easy to play.

Pretty much... Mages...

 

[SirAxel]

Time for WoW to go free.(party)

 

[Azure-Supernova]

1.) Lower the monthly fee. It doesn't have to be drastic, but until the economy turns around, that might be a good idea to keep players and gain new players.
2.) Find away to herd all the players who care more about Gear-Score and damage numbers onto their own server so those players who just want to have fun don't feel unwelcome and cancel their subscriptions.

I think if these two points are addressed I know a few people who would be happier for it. One of the reasons new players are scared away it's the abbreviations, the numbers and the need to conform to an ideal style of playing the game. It can quickly suck the fun out of it. I like to read quests and take in the lore, but when I'm in a group they just want to do the quests and level so they can do higher dungeons.

 

[Kargathia]

where the slightest slip-up meant death

Funny, as in my experience Lich King 25m HC was the hardest fight in WoW by a long, loooooooong stretch.

But well, on the whole I can agree with that it certainly doesn't feel as epic as it used to. Not calling doom and gloom yet though, as at most these are the first indications that WoW is not everlasting.

Big surprise, I know.

 

[Rawne1980]

300k out of 11.1 million subs? WOW THE GAME IS DYING! ABANDON SHIP! AIIIEEEEEE!!!111!1!!1!

Bit behind on the news?

It had just over 12 million subs at the start of the year.

It lost 600k subs last quarter and 300k this one.

Thats close to a million loss.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/911454-600k-Sub-Loss-EXPLAINED

To put it plainly they have gone from 12 million to just over 11 million. They might still have the big numbers but they are losing big numbers aswell.

Also bear in mind that people would still have been subbing yet the numbers are still dropping meaning more people leaving than signing up.

 

[Rednog]

My biggest problem with wow is the insanely stagnant servers. My main is stuck on a server that has like 1,000 people at peak times. This really sucks compared to servers that run around 15k at peak times. It is hard to find groups, the economy is terrible (hell the Unheeded Warning is still running 10-15k despite the fact that the nerf made it garbage), and there is next to no raid progression. And the only solution to this is to server transfer. Blizz used to address this issue by letting people move around with the occasional free transfer to help fill out servers. But now that they realized that people will fork over $25 to transfer a single character they just let the servers that are falling apart rot and die. Which is such a shame because I know people who have multiple characters on a single server and transferring all of them would run in the hundreds of dollars and they just aren't willing to fork over that much money and they would rather quick than logging on every day, waiting 45 minutes for a ZA/ZG group, having 0 pugs for any raids, and having to pay inflated AH prices. Blizz needs to get its act together and merge these low pop/low progressions servers already.

 

[Sarah Frazier]

So they're down to 11.1 million, which is actually the number counting free accounts (you know, those things people don't pay for?). I wonder how far they're down for real. Cause this ain't LOTRO where those free accounts are paying microtransactions or some shit like that, it's just a trial account.

Good to see it losing it's stranglehold - it'll make way for the new and better MMOs that are coming in '11/'12

I think you've missunderstood, that 11.1 million is the active number of accounts paying the monthly sub, if they counted free accounts and inactive accounts they'd probably be in the hundred of millions.

And how many of those billions are people who once had the money to run multiple accounts but had to let one or more go due to lack of funds? That's not even counting the untold numbers of trials made by spammers and bots...

Never trust a sub count.

OT: With even half the number of active subs it has now, WoW won't go belly up for a few years and it won't be because of some new game otherwise WoW would have gone under already. The reasons people are leaving now are too many to list, but with an MMO that's turned into a chat room with mini-games to play with friends, the effect is likely to snowball as more people leave to join their friends elsewhere. It will take more than another 5-10 level expansion to get people back and keep them. It will probably require a whole re-working of even the way things look in order to really grab people's interest and convince them to stay a while just to see the new pretty things.

 

[Sarah Frazier]

Blizz needs to get its act together and merge these low pop/low progressions servers already.

YES YES YES! The last time I tried to play WoW, I saw only a few servers that weren't at low pop at all times of the day. Rather than opening up new servers, they need to start closing the ones that can't even get 5k people on at once. Think of the money saved by having fewer servers to maintain. It could all go to whatever other projects they have going as well as the added benefit of moving the one or two GMs overlooking those servers to someplace else. Everyone will benefit. (maybe)

 

[Jake the Snake]

Inb4 the WoW haters show up shouting victory for X mmo as dethroning the giant.

I think the problem might be that there are veteran players who just got burnt out with the game. Hell I know at the end of Wrath I was so burnt out I let my subscription lapse and haven't really felt like going back. It's another expansion which means another year or two of grinding to the top of content only to have the board reset again with the next one. After going through vanilla, BC, and Wrath I just didn't feel like doing it anymore.

Despite the big revamps in Cataclysm it's still the same game, and the players who've been around for a long time are probably getting bored with the same old grind of content patterns.

This is essentially why everyone quits WoW at some point or another. I got out after 2 years. But I'm willing to bet even the most veteran of players are starting to feel the withering of the years of the same ol' grind.

 

[LJJ1991]

WOW is still an amazing game, regardless of how easy it has become. I quit a while back simply because I don't have the time anymore, but I still consider it to have an amazing aesthetic, great gameplay and it has plenty to do. It's definitely never been challenged like it has before, though. Not only are games like Rift, Tera and when it finally comes out, The Old Republic a factor, but the many many high quality free mmo's are posing a real challenge, as well. I could see WOW becoming a free 2 play game in the future (not for a while, though). I think once it does that, it'll be at the very top again. But, it's definitely facing challenges.

 

[Archemetis]

How about instead of solely catering to the 'end-game' crowd. We actually have a content patch that has something for the little guy whose still levelling?

Cataclysm in my eyes is one of the best expansions so far if only because it gave me new things to do while I levelled.

Now, it's fucking boring again because I've seen it all... Again.

I realise it's easier to update with new, level-capped content because it's at the end, it can just be added on.

But just adding in the occasional new quest for those still on their way to 85 wouldn't hurt.

Why not spend some time slowly re-working content from previous expansions?
I'm not saying reboot it all entirely, maybe just have a look at some of the quests and re-work them to more fit the style you've currently got?

I know that whenever I level a new character I dread hitting level 58 because I know I can only put off going to Outland for another 2 levels.

With some refreshed content in Outland I probably wouldn't feel like I have to slog through PuGs for ten levels...

It's not even just outland, what aboutthe Exodar and Silvermoon? Surely something should have happened toards those areas by now?

I mean The Draenei have been living on Azeroth for a few years now, surely they canmove away from the crumped waste of their crashed space ship?

And Silvermoon shouldn't be having so much of a scourge problem now, right?

I mean remnants would remain, sure but the Lich King is dead according to Canon. So maybe building up that destroyed section again wouldn't hurt.

And in regards to Outland, Illidan is dead, threat over (in that, kill one big guy, everything is sorted, fantasy kind of way) So really, shouldn't something else be happening?
With just a few little Deadmines style updates Outland won't feel so dated and and I can aoid feeling like I've travelled to the past everytime my character end up their.

 

[savandicus]

So they're down to 11.1 million, which is actually the number counting free accounts (you know, those things people don't pay for?). I wonder how far they're down for real. Cause this ain't LOTRO where those free accounts are paying microtransactions or some shit like that, it's just a trial account.

Good to see it losing it's stranglehold - it'll make way for the new and better MMOs that are coming in '11/'12

I think you've missunderstood, that 11.1 million is the active number of accounts paying the monthly sub, if they counted free accounts and inactive accounts they'd probably be in the hundred of millions.

And how many of those billions are people who once had the money to run multiple accounts but had to let one or more go due to lack of funds? That's not even counting the untold numbers of trials made by spammers and bots...

Never trust a sub count.

OT: With even half the number of active subs it has now, WoW won't go belly up for a few years and it won't be because of some new game otherwise WoW would have gone under already. The reasons people are leaving now are too many to list, but with an MMO that's turned into a chat room with mini-games to play with friends, the effect is likely to snowball as more people leave to join their friends elsewhere. It will take more than another 5-10 level expansion to get people back and keep them. It will probably require a whole re-working of even the way things look in order to really grab people's interest and convince them to stay a while just to see the new pretty things.

I was trying to be helpful and point out that actually the 11.1 million does not include any free accounts and that actually 11.1 mill is the number of accounts that are currently paying the monthly subcription fee and therefore the number that they're down to 'for real'. But its nice to know that you completely ignored that part of the post and posted something that both does not make any sense and does not actually reply to my comment atall.

Let me explain to you some definitions in a simple way so you might understand what a subcription count is and what the things that you are pretending it is.

Subcription count - The number of ACCOUNTS currently paying the monthly fee for wow

Total number of accounts - Any account made by anyone (A useless number for anything which you started off thinking was the sub count)

Total number of PLAYERS - The number of accounts that log in each week (Not to be confused with subcription count (again) because this one includes all free and trial accounts that do not pay any money to the game aswell as those who do) This is the thing that you confused with subcription count in your reply. This number is useful to know how many people are playing the game on a regular basis but will usually be slightly off due to people having multiple accounts or multiple people playing one account and is the only number that you can claim as 'difficult to trust' as its hard to measure.

I hope this post has been informative to you and that you might stop confusing the three different counts, i've put the two words in caps that i think are most important in the hope that you might notice them.

 

[Sean951]

I played far more than I would like to admit during Wrath, and I had a blast. But then my guild blew up before Cata, and the new heroics tended to contain far more trash than I wanted to deal with as a tank. I don't mind a bit of trash in a dungeon, but having to try and tank with 2-3 random people (I always brought a healer and usually a DPS) sucked. By the point I was actually doing randoms in Lich King, I could pretty much solo the content so I didn't mind the people fresh into heroics in greens. The bosses could pose a challenge at first, but they didn't have the insta-death moves that they almost all have now, and when I'm looking through the particle effects of 4 other people, it can get pretty hard to see that tiny purple zone of death. I'll still come back and play when the next expansion comes out, hoping for a return to what made Wrath enjoyable, but that's pretyt much it.

 

[LostAlone]

The tech it runs on is woeful, im suprised so many people still play it. Im guessing the numbers will see a further slide considering games like SWToR, Guildwars 2 and so on are coming out. Rift also seems to be gaining some slight traction too.

This is true.

SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, Firefall, Planetside 2, Phantasy Star Online 2...

Too many good games coming out to stick around. And from what I've played and seen, all of these are FAR ahead of WoW.

In some ways yes, in others no. The main advantage WoW has over the competition is it is just so established. Any issues that there were have been ironed out years ago so the game has a level of polish equivalent to around 6 years extra dev time.

But you can only do so much with old tech and many older dungeons and whole areas pre cataclysm became almost totally redundant since they were designed for a top-tier that no longer is top ao i guess its swings and roundabouts.

I agree about content becoming redundant. It's a problem that every level based MMO has to deal with at some point. You either keep the level cap the same, which sucks because that means you are admitting that your current end-game is going to stay exactly where it is, or you end up constantly trying to one-up your former epic endgame raids and dungeons.

And that's a tough choice to make for a developer. They naturally want to develop more and more and more and let people keep and expand their characters to infinity, but when you've billed every other epic final bossfight of doom as being more epic than before, you are setting yourself up to disappoint, and if you disappoint, the players are invested and what was a good game just becomes grinding for the hell of it.

Now im not saying that's exactly whats happening here. Wow account numbers have always been a bit dodgy at best to me because they are always ambiguous at what counts as an account (trial ? lapsed ? alts ?) and a drop off in the summer (ie when younger people are out getting drunk in the woods) isn't at all surprising.

However, I do think that Wow is going to hit this problem like a brick wall in the next few years. As the end-game (and thus the actual cool bits like pvp and epic raids) gets further and further away, but at the same time the top end content drops off in quality (or at least is underwhelming and little different from before) then subs are going to drop until the game dies. This is a problem with all level base MMOs and the only reason that WoW has avoided it up until now is that it is the starter MMO for almost everyone. Popular breeds popular, everyone knows people who play WoW, and they give it a go.

Nothing is going to take WoWs crown, so calm down you fanboys, because of course it built its massive sub base in a completely different era. Every one and there mother has a mmo out now, but when WoW was new there wasn't much else on the market that could easilly compare and in fairness its a pretty good game.

 

[The Lugz]

I don't know, I'm a six year veteran of WoW and for some reason Cataclysm just isn't "doing it" for me. I don't know what it is exactly but there just feels like something is missing. I know a lot of guild members are saying the same thing. We can't put our finger on it but something that was there in the previous three chapters just isn't there any longer.

you're too good at it, basically.

honestly ive played wow since launch and i can play my mage so well at this point i can solo whole sections of 5player dungeons the game just isnt a challenge, because if it's possible i can do it

there's a buff i can steal in a part of twilight bastion that makes me immune to all damage, i was once in a pug raid that wiped there once i just killed the entire room while they rezzed by keeping the buff mob alive

pve, is a joke.

pvp just comes down to stats if you have a truckload of resi and a healer in your bg, you win
if you don't then you failed, dismally.

i quit wow because there is no more cool silly mental things to do like grind 'the insane' title
they took all the hardcore things away because the socials don't like them
therefore they loose all their original fan-base, minus the fan-boys who would buy a blizzard branded turd.

 

[LazyAza]

I last played wow some time in the middle of 09. It was a fun couple of years but eh between the never ending loot arguments, sheer flood of noob players that came along with lich king and the overall feeling nothing had really changed much between 2006 and 3 years later I just stopped caring for the thing. That and my time/money needing to be spent on other things lol.

Weirdly I would totally get hardcore in to another mmo if it offered an equal or superior experience and I wasn't obligated to be online all the freaking time to be able to experience the parts of the game I want to. Hoping the 40k mmo turns out decent, assuming it actually releases in 2013.

 

[Genixma]

I don't care if it's dropping like flies. Give me Diablo 3 >_< and make it longer than Wings of Liberty

 

[Kroxile]

Good. Even though I highly doubt 11.1 mil players is the real number, its much much lower than that, I am happy to see this PoS game finally start to go the way of the dinosaur.