World of Warcraft Subscriptions Continue to Slide

[Dragunai]

I typically quit for a few months and go back when the shine comes back. I've been playing since vanilla came to the shelves and thus I've seen it all and done it all. All I really have left is re-rolling old classes and trying something new with them.

It does however make me glad to see that major companies do respond to mass negativity in the form of people quitting, making them actually modify it to what the people want and not what the people are told they want.

Now if only we could put an embargo in place on Activision and EA and who knows! Maybe Acti would make a COD game worth playing and EA would just make a game worth playing, preferably one that isn't more bug than software and isn't half finished.

A man can dream can't he?

oh and if Blizzard wants to fix this, try adding raid content a group of new players can't steam roll in less than an hour. That was Wotlk's weakness and to some extent it translated into Cata. Yes, yes we're all very impressed by the tanks with 200k hp who can take a hit of 40k and walk it off but that doesn't mean anything.

Catas tanks with 200k are just vanilla's tanks with 10k
The numbers got bigger but the ratio of dmg taken remains exactly the same.
Too bad I am one of a handful of people who realized this.

 

[Uber Waddles]

Blizzard lost people because they made content too easy.

And before you go on, Im not an elitist - I beleive the game was still hard. Until they added a new tier of raiding, accessability to higher level gear, AND ON TOP OF THAT, nerfed all previous encounters (regular and Heroic) BY ATLEAST 20%.

Overkill. Sucked the PvE challenge right outta the game.

The only thing keeping me paying my subscription is leveling a new character for PvP. Thats it.

They wanna bring people back? STOP BEATING EVERYTHING WITH THE NERF STICK.

Uber difficulty is annoying. So is pissing through content when you can deliberately ignore the mechanics.

 

[Brainst0rm]

Dalaran is gorgeous - that picture, not so much.

Anyway, the first two patches of Cataclysm have had nothing but recycled bosses and content. The boss mechanics are all new of course, but it's simply hard to get excited about beating Zul'Aman...again, and Zul'Gurub...again, and killing Ragnaros...for the second or third time.

And the fact is, yes, Cataclysm just didn't have a very long shelf life. It didn't have half the atmosphere of WotLK, and the updated Horde and Allilance capitals are quickly taken for granted.

 

[VladG]

WoW is still the top dog, and all mmos out there are still running on the same basic gameplay principles. But after so many years, it's normal for it's fan base to die down. Same old grind, fairly uninteresting content (WotLK was epic, and every expansion brought us closer to basically completing the story chain that started with warcraft 1. Now we're playing in the expanded universe that, while interesting, just doesn't have the same weight), people getting burned out on the game, people wanting something now after so many years, economic pressures. It's all normal. It will steadily and slowly decline over the years and I don't think it will reach it's intended number of expansions. But it still has many a good year ahead of it, and I for one am looking forward to any game that claims it has even the least of a chance to dethrone it.

As for dethroning WoW... It's not going to be Rift. Or even SW:TOR. It's going to be Titan.

 

[Tentickles]

Perhaps it's time to create an entirely new MMO, Blizzard.

Go look up Project Titan

 

[Aeshi]

Blizzard lost people because they made content too easy.

And before you go on, Im not an elitist - I beleive the game was still hard. Until they added a new tier of raiding, accessability to higher level gear, AND ON TOP OF THAT, nerfed all previous encounters (regular and Heroic) BY ATLEAST 20%.

Overkill. Sucked the PvE challenge right outta the game.

The only thing keeping me paying my subscription is leveling a new character for PvP. Thats it.

They wanna bring people back? STOP BEATING EVERYTHING WITH THE NERF STICK.

Uber difficulty is annoying. So is pissing through content when you can deliberately ignore the mechanics.

I will agree that if there is ONE reason WoW is failing it's this.

The freaking LICH KING (the "Final boss" of WotLK") is a petty 10-man encounter. If this keeps up the "final boss" of Cataclysm will probably be some 5-man quest who commits suicide upon seeing you.

What the fuck happened to the days where a raid took 40 people, where the slightest slip-up meant death and a purple item name actually signified something?

 

[bootz]

During Wotlk the hardcore complained omg wow is wayyyy toooo easy.
So they made cata harder so the Casual pretty much can't run a herioc without someone complaining they are dieing. Hardcore people dont want to run dugeons to carry "fail dps"
5 mans use to be my favorite part of wow. Not in cata. Theres only 2 85 reg 5 mans and they are pretty boring.
So without 5 mans the casual is left with dailys(they take about 30 mins )and/or pvp.
They made archeology but thats a bust 4 hours of work to get something that turns you to amber for 5 minutes.

The new raid system killed 25 man raiding.(same loot and lock out for 25 and 10 man) I also killed my guild which split into 10 man raiding guilds.

with the new content theres a lot of recycling older content . Two of the "new" heriocs are recycled old 5 mans. the 4.1 content took two way old raids everyones done before and made them 5 man heriocs. There was no NEW content.

I do like 4.2 so far but they cut out a raid they promised.(the water one)I'm alreayd 6/7 in 2 weeks after in came out.

I still play because I really like raiding but I've had several casual friends not play for a long time.

The hardcore people who take this GAME way to serious is killing it and taking the FUN away.
If we were nicer to casuals they might stay but this thread as an example the wow community is not a nice place.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2548995815

 

[Beertaster]

Wow everyone acts like wow is dead? It still has 2/3 of the MMORPG market. It's not that the game is "old" its that some of the older players are moving on to other things. I much as anyone loves a franchise, nobody can stay in it forever and not want to try something else. Call it Blizzard's fault but truthfully its that you can't keep people in a game forever.

Now this is Blizzard's current dilemma. Despite being one of the easiest MMO's to get into Blizzard has grabbed up its entire player base. So Bliz needs to find new groups of people to sell the game to (like casual gamers, and foreign countries). Second is what I said first. Some players have been with the game for years and want to move on to try new games.

WoW is probably still the best MMORPG out there and will be on top for another 5 years at least. but in terms of the games new player base, and players leaving the game. WoW has done about everything a game like it could EVER DO. So I'd call WoW the pinnacle of performance any MMORPG could ever hope to do.

 

[Phenakist]

Well I left because it was "get gear score or die" that's never any fun. I joined late WotLK 'cause a couple of guys in my class persuaded me to, got up to 80 2 weeks before Caty, played along, 85 after the first 4 days, starting to fall slightly behind, and fell farther and farther behind, and got fed up, because I couldn't be bothered waiting 30 mins to get a dungeon to get taking gear so I would only need to wait 3 minutes, to get into the dungeons to get higher level gear,, to get into a higher tier of dungeons to get higher level gear for low level raids.... blah blah blah.... point is, it was grind fest after grind fest after grindfest, and I just got bored.

Somewhat more ontopic, wouldn't worry, it's gonna be about for a good while longer, and I don't want WoW killed, I want it there, so I know where the bulk of hardcore no-lifer's are. I want to play games for fun, and that's hard to do with them breathing down your neck making you feel inferior for having other dedications.

 

[Mangod]

WoW's losing subscribers because, to quote Yahtzee: "things stop being funny the longer you live with them." The game's been going strong for 7 years, but despite three expansions, it's still always been the same game, and after 7 years people will probably start to burn out on it.

 

[Raddra]

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?

Agreed so much.

Honestly I just cannot bear the grind anymore.

It takes too long to level. I know its fairly easy compared to other games but its still the same thing over and over. And since all the interesting gear and stats don't start till way too high level I just kind of lost interest in my new Worgen. And since the game doesn't even really 'begin' till the level grind is over.. eh.

Not sure how to fix that though.. they can't exactly throw levels at you, but it would be nice to get an XP buff for new characters the more characters you have up to that characters level. (i.e yo have 1 85 one 80 and 3 30's, you get 50% bonus xp to 31, then 20% bonus xp till 80, then 10% bonus xp till 85)

I think the main annoyance at leveling was the solo quest grind. I know you can dungeon to level, but the dungeon pickup playerbase sucked for the most part. Solo quest grind is ok as an option but as an enforced leveling mechanic it sucked royally.

Additionally I cannot stand looking like a clown as I level up, and like EVERYONE ELSE at max level. I'm tired of the lack of appearance slots. All the old arguments against it are dumb, and the lack of listening to the playerbase on it made me lose faith that the devs 'get it'.

And with the community sucking, I guess I just lost faith in it. I like immersion in games.

 

[karamazovnew]

I've played WoW for almost four years, from Vanilla up till "Wrath of the Lich King" and I had quite a lot of good times in it. Vanilla was the best, the graphics seems better then and each map was new and exciting. I reached maximum level just before "The Burning Crusade" and I welcomed the increased level cap. I raided my ass of in it sometimes revisiting older raids just for fun and collecting old gear. But what killed the game for me was the next expansion. It was ok but the raids were lame and just got lamer. Every time a new dungeon came out, the old ones were left deserted and the new items just trashed the old. I've seen excellent players left out because some noobs with money to spend bought gold and bribed the officers for better gear which made all the difference. I quit and never looked back. But I do miss the times spent with 4 other friends in the superb instances of the Vanilla game.

 

[Zenn3k]

Nobody wants to level a new toon to 85, its boring.

The PvP elements are completely broken in Cata. Cata was suppose to make fights last longer...they do, but now Pug vs Pug is impossible, as the team with 1 competent healer DOMINATES...if the PUG you got doesn't have that healer, you might as well /afk out of Battlegrounds.

1 Healer can out heal the damage of up to 10 people focusing, thats a bit much...combine damage mitigation via resilience, insane levels of healing, as well as class specific "get out of jail free" cards...and PvP loses a lot of its fun factor. If you aren't playing one of the 1-4 classes that DOMINATE PvP, you simply aren't having any fun.

As well, the WoW community is now fairly crappy. No longer is your server your "home", where you have a reputation. Instead, who cares? You were a useless prick? Buy a server switch! Better yet, just PUG randoms and never see the same person twice! Why bother to be nice to anyone when you never have to answer for your rudeness? (Not saying I do that, but many do).

The community was also hurt badly by catering to the SUPER casual...not just the casual, but the plays twice a month SUPER casual. They have handed out free gear and upgrades for so long that if anyone has to work for more than 1 day at something, everyone explodes all over the forums in rage.

WoW today is not the same WoW I played at release, its terrible now.

 

[Koshok]

the World of Warcraft dreadnought is still chugging along, with a whopping 11.1 million subscribers worldwide. But as impressive as that figure is, it still represents a drop of roughly 300,000 subscribers over the quarter that ended on June 30 and that's enough to have Blizzard scrambling to find ways to turn things around.

Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that Blizzard seems to be panicking over a 3% loss in their subscription base? This is the kind of thing that can lead to overreactions and making more people leave, IMO.

 

[Rigs83]

Stopped playing WOW and after just spend fifteen frustrating minutes trying to merge my wow account with a battle.net account I will never play it again

 

[Doc Theta Sigma]

No we left because its too easy , and your making us pay for mounts

1. I wouldn't say it's too easy. Wrath was too easy. Some of the Cataclysm content just seems to want to draw itself out for as long as possible. For example see the absurd amounts of trash mobs in Grim Batol.

2. Making us pay for mounts? Erm... I don't see that happening. The Celestial Steed and Winged Guardian mounts are completely optional purchases. They don't give anyone an advantage or a higher status in game. They're purely aesthetic.

 

[Alrocsmash]

Nobody wants to level a new toon to 85, its boring.

The PvP elements are completely broken in Cata. Cata was suppose to make fights last longer...they do, but now Pug vs Pug is impossible, as the team with 1 competent healer DOMINATES...if the PUG you got doesn't have that healer, you might as well /afk out of Battlegrounds.

1 Healer can out heal the damage of up to 10 people focusing, thats a bit much...combine damage mitigation via resilience, insane levels of healing, as well as class specific "get out of jail free" cards...and PvP loses a lot of its fun factor. If you aren't playing one of the 1-4 classes that DOMINATE PvP, you simply aren't having any fun.

As well, the WoW community is now fairly crappy. No longer is your server your "home", where you have a reputation. Instead, who cares? You were a useless prick? Buy a server switch! Better yet, just PUG randoms and never see the same person twice! Why bother to be nice to anyone when you never have to answer for your rudeness? (Not saying I do that, but many do).

The community was also hurt badly by catering to the SUPER casual...not just the casual, but the plays twice a month SUPER casual. They have handed out free gear and upgrades for so long that if anyone has to work for more than 1 day at something, everyone explodes all over the forums in rage.

WoW today is not the same WoW I played at release, its terrible now.

This man knows what is up. SUPER casuals ruined the game. Leveling with hierlooms is so brainless it is not fun. Your toon is STUPIDLY overpowered at lower levels. I played the game from CLOSED beta, to about 2 months after cata. I raied most content, and hit 2450 in pvp twice. I hope WoW burns in a fiery hell.

 

[LITE992]

WoW stopped being fun when everything became incredibly easy. The Dungeon Finder was nice as finding a willing healer and tank took up to hours only for them to leave after a single wipe. But the gameplay became very easy, especially when Shamans can cast Earth Shield on the tank, which keeps their health up so you can screw around.

I'm not jumping on the WoW hate bandwagon, but there's no challenge to this game anymore, and levelling up is now a chore when before it was fun.

EDIT: Totally agree with the WoW moving towards super-casuals opinion.

 

[Malrock]

I still think very fondly of WoW. I have been playing since release and recently cancelled my subscription.

It's not that I have become disenchanted (no pun intended) with any of Blizzards decisions, or the direction that the game has taken. I no longer subscribe simply because you can only play something for so long before it begins to feel samey.

WoW has done bloody good to keep me entertained for as long as it has. I will always look back on it nostalgically, and while I pray that something will come along that tops it, I very much doubt that for me, anything will be quite as magical and captivating.

 

[FiveSpeedf150]

I loved WoW, playing with my guild through WOTLK was a hell of a lot of fun. I miss a lot of it.

OTOH, I felt like I poured a ton of time into it and I only ever got one 80. Cata came out and I leveled up to 85, but it just didn't draw me in... and the profession grind? Again? Fuuuuuuuuuu....

Yeah I just decided to drop it. Wasn't fun anymore.