WoW Down to 10.3M Subscribers, PTR Build 14966, Class Balance Q&A, TCG Art

Originally Posted by Kourvith

Did Blizzard really thought they would hold such astronomical subscription numbers forever, whatever they would do ?

Yes it is very possible to do that. Think of the sport games like Fifa or Pro Evolution Soccer. Both of those franchises exist way over decade (Fifa 18 years, PES 10 years) Both of those games have basicly same core gameplay unchanged since the beggining only a few tweaks here and there just like WoW. Despite them being pretty much same game with only updated team roosters which could be done in DLC those games still stand strong and sell well despite them being soo much older? why? that's because:

The very basic activity is fun despite it being old

WoW can do that to. Except that their supposed fun activity is struggling with terrible community that they brew themselves through annonimity tools like LFD and name and shame policy.

WoW isnt dying because of content or such. It pushes out more content that any MMO despite it having such old game engine. The very fundamental problem of WoW is that Blizzard socially engineered its player base to be much much worse.

Originally Posted by slackjawsix

they just got wotlk... they not anywhere near Mop

They're actually almost caught up to us. They should be at 4.2 by now. I know they got up to 4.1 in China.

gonna be another mill lost when swtor comes out and not to mention MoP which looks like absolute shit and will net more losses.

Originally Posted by kagg

ok i'll start at the beginning of this.

are you going to notice the loss player base? not really, dead servers will be offered free transfers to medium servers. Free character migrations will be offered, anyone remember those? i do.

Now they have already introduce Guild transfair ?
Hohoho , i dont think so !
But atleast , i hope so too , for MoP World PvP

Originally Posted by Gorthalis

If you're playing on a Chinese subscription, you can't go and sell gold to your US/EU customers, now can you?

This isn't bots that have been banned/quit.

Some info:

1. Classic and all Xpac packs are all free in taiwan and china servers, newcomers only need to pay subsciption fees to join.

2. Taiwan servers have been conquered by chinese players since wrath, because chinese servers are running an xpac behind the rest of the world, currently china is on wotlk. Due to cultural differences, we generally consider chinese and taiwanese, different regions.

3. For blizzard, taiwan is a region, china is a region, southeast asia is another region. For chinese cities like Hong Kong and Macau, Blizzard encourages them to play SEA if they want english games, or TW if they want chinese games. For WOW, HK and Macau is part of TW server service.

4. In TW servers, there is a lot of bans recently that involves gold selling and account hacking. Basically anyone who is receiving a large amount of gold for no legit reason, would get them banned. Also in extreme, people who receive black gold (gold that is obtained illegally), even 1 copper from auction house, would result in first 7 days ban, followed by permanent ban. Thus, though there is still bot miners, it has decline compared to wrath.

Originally Posted by CCloak

Some info:

1. Classic and all Xpac packs are all free in taiwan and china servers, newcomers only need to pay subsciption fees to join.

2. Taiwan servers have been conquered by chinese players since wrath, because chinese servers are running an xpac behind the rest of the world, currently china is on wotlk. Due to cultural differences, we generally consider chinese and taiwanese, different regions.

3. For blizzard, taiwan is a region, china is a region, southeast asia is another region. For chinese cities like Hong Kong and Macau, Blizzard encourages them to play SEA if they want english games, or TW if they want chinese games. For WOW, HK and Macau is part of TW server service.

4. In TW servers, there is a lot of bans recently that involves gold selling and account hacking. Basically anyone who is receiving a large amount of gold for no legit reason, would get them banned. Also in extreme, people who receive black gold (gold that is obtained illegally), even 1 copper from auction house, would result in first 7 days ban, followed by permanent ban. Thus, though there is still bot miners, it has decline compared to wrath.

If a significant portion of the lost subscribers were those who were banned, I think that Blizzard would have included that in their little fact list. It would have made the loss come off much better.

It also seems absurd to me that there could be so many bans that it would amount to a number like, say, 100k in a quarter.

ITS THE PANDAS!! nah jk.. actually..no; no im not. PANDAS!! oh yeah and people probably left because cata was crap too.

Originally Posted by CCloak

Some info:

1. Classic and all Xpac packs are all free in taiwan and china servers, newcomers only need to pay subsciption fees to join.

2. Taiwan servers have been conquered by chinese players since wrath, because chinese servers are running an xpac behind the rest of the world, currently china is on wotlk. Due to cultural differences, we generally consider chinese and taiwanese, different regions.

3. For blizzard, taiwan is a region, china is a region, southeast asia is another region. For chinese cities like Hong Kong and Macau, Blizzard encourages them to play SEA if they want english games, or TW if they want chinese games. For WOW, HK and Macau is part of TW server service.

4. In TW servers, there is a lot of bans recently that involves gold selling and account hacking. Basically anyone who is receiving a large amount of gold for no legit reason, would get them banned. Also in extreme, people who receive black gold (gold that is obtained illegally), even 1 copper from auction house, would result in first 7 days ban, followed by permanent ban. Thus, though there is still bot miners, it has decline compared to wrath.

China is on cata not wotlk...

Not a shocker. A big drop off was bound to happen. It is hard to hold on to such a huge base. WoW isnt the only good game anymore. Video games in general have taken a big hit in sales. Strained economies could be a reason. Imo, subscription based gaming is a fast dying idea anyway.The loss of numbers most likely goes way past an actual problem with the game. Outside circumstances can have a huge effect.

Originally Posted by Gorthalis

If a significant portion of the lost subscribers were those who were banned, I think that Blizzard would have included that in their little fact list. It would have made the loss come off much better.

Problem is, those banned accounts would have also counted as original subscription numbers. In other words, their subscribed population was lower than advertised... supposing they actually released sub numbers per region. For (fictitious) example, 2 million accounts in that region. 100k get banned. Well, the population was actually only 1.9 million to begin with, not the 2 million it was assumed to be.

blizz is sad panda now ^^

Originally Posted by johnnyo032003

Well I know why the most recent sub loss came in, Everyone has this "OMFG Blizz y r u copy Kung Fu Panda WoW is fer babiez nao I'mma cancelling my sub now kthxbai" attitude. So many people that don't understand that Pandaren were in WarCraft before Kung Fu Panda ever came out! Yes it was a joke then but technically PANDAREN WERE THERE FIRST. However, a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that the chinese people respect pandas like gods and would never consider them being violent ever. Its like putting Jesus in WoW as a playable character... anyway, a lot of people are also burned out and are going to other games... WoW will likely not have enough subs for Blizz to do another Xpac after MoP... They will probably end up doing a raid against Sargeras at the end of MoP the same way they tossed Sunwell on at the end of BC and call it the end of the warcraft storyline.

Must... restrain... from... throttling...

It's bound to happen eventually. Wow has obviously peaked. It's hard to keep anyone interested in the same game for years on end, without the player getting bored or burnt out. Myself and some friends resubscribed for Cata, but apart from 2 people out of 15, all have quit the game again, and most are not interested in resubscribing for Pandaland. I personally left about 4 weeks ago because I wasn't having fun. I'm not sure how to quantify 'fun', but apart from leveling alts (I had 8 85's, an 82 and a 73) and doing 'mount runs' over and over, I was pretty bored.

still no fix for the shitty boomkin 4pc.

I'd really like to know how many people plays with AION and RIFT, I don't know why they never tell it...

Originally Posted by Meera

Sweet, 800k less and going on. Let's see what they now, expect some new promotions and more nerfbaths. I hope the game crash hard next year, so hard that it would go down to 3 million. The game just became something dull in all perspectives, compared with the Classic era or BC one, where things were done well.

You know, people wouldn't give a f*** about that anyway. Really, i don't understand this attitude.

It's like to say "i don't like bananas. ALL BANANA PLANTATIONS MUST BURN, WE NEED TO GET RID OF BANANAS! THEY SHOULD DISAPPEAR FROM THE PLANET."

Sounds legit. Go get a flamwthrower and run to Blizzard's server farms if you really want it down lol.

Excuses are fun, I wonder how many more blizzard can make without of coarse ever blaming themselves....maybe they should actually put more effort into the game rather then The PetStore?and of coarse there is always the fans "deny, deny, deny!"

Originally Posted by Dzudzadzo

Yes it is very possible to do that. Think of the sport games like Fifa or Pro Evolution Soccer. Both of those franchises exist way over decade (Fifa 18 years, PES 10 years) Both of those games have basicly same core gameplay unchanged since the beggining only a few tweaks here and there just like WoW. Despite them being pretty much same game with only updated team roosters which could be done in DLC those games still stand strong and sell well despite them being soo much older? why? that's because:

The very basic activity is fun despite it being old

WoW can do that to. Except that their supposed fun activity is struggling with terrible community that they brew themselves through annonimity tools like LFD and name and shame policy.

WoW isnt dying because of content or such. It pushes out more content that any MMO despite it having such old game engine. The very fundamental problem of WoW is that Blizzard socially engineered its player base to be much much worse.

I moderately agree with this. Rather than try to hotfix the time it took to get to a dungeon by introducing the LFD tool, they should have implemented scenario type option or created instances that only needed a healer or a tank, and appropriately adjusted the mechanics that way. The only people who had an impossible time finding groups prior to the LFD tool are the very people everyone wants to boot from the LFD groups, but can't because of the bloody timers.

Originally Posted by Holydruid

i bet my life wow isnt "dying" within atleast 4 years.

Yeah, I tend to agree on the number. There may a steady decline in subscriptions but I am not worried for four more years. And whatever Blizzard loses in WoW, it gains with other titles, so the only conclusion = release D3 already, January will be ok.

Although, I find it funny that they say 'usually it goes up in December', a little too optimistic to expect 2 million to resubscribe. Even if the numbers go up, it's going to be a small increase but I guess they have to feed the corporate sharks some meat chunks.

Originally Posted by Gorthalis

If a significant portion of the lost subscribers were those who were banned, I think that Blizzard would have included that in their little fact list. It would have made the loss come off much better.

It also seems absurd to me that there could be so many bans that it would amount to a number like, say, 100k in a quarter.

Blizzard was banning 300k people a quarter back in 2008 when WoW only had 8 million subs. With their increased skill at catching botters and the 50% increase in subscriptions since then you easily bet that that number has doubled by now. The fact of the matter is that when botters get banned, THEY RESUB. Their subscriptions actually get counted twice in the month that they're banned.