WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers

Originally Posted by Celista

Lmao...no. Seriously laughed out loud at this.

Some dailies are better than others, but a vehicle for compelling storywriting they are not. Progressive dailies are a slight improvement, but the same story could be told over a long non-repeatable questline. There is nothing about the "daily" and "repeatable" element of dailies that makes dailies a better vehicle for storytelling over regular quests.

no they couldnt. some of it could be replicated but the feel of progression over time wouldnt be there, it would be hopping from time zone to time zone

Originally Posted by Dispirit

i'm more surprised that D3 sales continued to climb so high considering it's reputation.

I also thought this was the most interesting fact. If I recall rightly, D3 sold 10 million in the initial release rush. This means that even after the haters would have us believe that everyone in the world hated it and nobody had a single good word to say about it, it still sold two million more copies.

Translation: the haters were as hysterical and noisy a minority as I always thought they were.

Originally Posted by Nagassh

There are sections of books that don't directly impact the stories plot, but they're still part of telling the story - because otherwise the "book" would be a series of bullet points.

The "filler" daily quests are still an important part of the story, and anyone who argues the 5.1 daily / quest line didn't tell a good story is just being silly - probably the best piece of questing they've added to the game since classic, I actually like Lor'themar now, I know nothing of his character before it - now I'd wouldn't object even if he became warchief.

i think this sums up how i feel about them.

Originally Posted by Immitis

there all part of the same hub. if it werent for the daily quests and you just showed up once after x amount of time it wouldnt have the same feel to it.

daily quests allow time to move forward in events without hopping.

i count the "non" daily quests as part of the entire experience that the dailies center around

I suppose they do add to the atmosphere of what makes the story relevant.

IMO, they could tweak daily quests to be more like filler episodes on TV shows: add little bits and hints that tie into the overall arc which progresses each day of dailies (at smaller reputation benchmarks than the main story quests).

Originally Posted by Immitis

yes they do. some of the best quest writing this games ever seen.

No they really don't, the actual dailies have next to no story. Its the few quests they put in every now and then (the 5.1 stuff had that every second day and at the end even every single day) that tell a story. Going down a mine and killing spiders because random npc goblin x wants to turn a profit because he thinks y is important, even though you will never hear of it again, is not telling a story. All the dailies do is put gating on the actual story quests. While it was certainly refreshing I could do with out the dailies and just do the story ones, but this way the 5.1 patch would have lasted mere 3hours instead of a bit over a week or two.

Originally Posted by Garradorr

I find it funny those who say they quit cause of the dailies, that they are in no way forced to do don't like them don't do them simple as that.

It isn't that they are forced to do them; it's that blizzard wastes time on building tedious boring tasks, pet battles for example, rather than make the game more interesting by focusing on what makes the game good. No one plays wow to play with pokemon.

i *still* disagree with those D3 stats. annual pass free copies were included. i dont consider that a sale

Originally Posted by Yondame

I agree and then disagree. Ironically WoW was at its highest when 40 man raids existed. Were they tuned correctly? No, but.. it made more of a socially acceptable game, IE MMORPG. WoW has literally became so unlike what a MMORPG stands for.. you can now do most things except raid, by yourself. I don't wish to play a game where I do 98% solo and even 1-2% social. If I want single player I have a long list of games I can play, or even get more out of lately then WoW gives socially.

while community did change.. the game itself changed with the difficulty curve.. raids got smaller because it became harder to fill with quality players who could do the content. look at where we are today.. little to no server community, and most 25 man raiding is dead because its easier to find 10 bodies who can breath and do what they are told and not have to drag 25 to 15 other people who repeatedly wipe the raid over and over. if you want to get down to the nitty gritty.. its lack of new content and lack of success at current content that will cause the biggest ammount of bleed in the game.. doing the same thing over and over for 6 months and then doing it when you have a guild that struggles for various reasons (maybe they are just behind the curve.. but that curve will get steeper and steeper till i catch's a lot of guilds) less players succeeding the more players quit

Originally Posted by Nagassh

There are sections of books that don't directly impact the stories plot, but they're still part of telling the story - because otherwise the "book" would be a series of bullet points.

The "filler" daily quests are still an important part of the story, and anyone who argues the 5.1 daily / quest line didn't tell a good story is just being silly - probably the best piece of questing they've added to the game since classic, I actually like Lor'themar now, I know nothing of his character before it - now I'd wouldn't object even if he became warchief.

That filler in books is used to develop the characters in the story. Nothing in those daily quests had anything to do with any of the characters in the story. It tries to set the environment and scale of what is happening around the main plot, but it's just busywork.

Originally Posted by Aquamonkey

I suppose they do add to the atmosphere of what makes the story relevant.

IMO, they could tweak daily quests to be more like filler episodes on TV shows: add little bits and hints that tie into the overall arc which progresses each day of dailies (at smaller reputation benchmarks than the main story quests).

yeah there is definitely lots of room for improvement

Originally Posted by Immitis

i ask why do you expect all of your alts to be that geared up? why is it so important that you progress that far with more than one or two characters? you in no way need valor gear in order to do raids, lfr, or dungeons. it only takes about 7 daily quests a day to get the 90 you need a week for the bonus roll that only gives a slight chance at more loot.

Working on alts helps to prevent burnout, but when your main requires 90% of your time just doing repetitive boring tasks to stay current there isn't much time left. It isn't about the gear, it is about progress and when your main isn't getting any drops or making new progress, gearing up an alt can help to give some feeling of progress albeit on another char, also the differences in gameplay can help keep it fresh. At least that is how I see it.

Originally Posted by bigjohnburger

It isn't that they are forced to do them; it's that blizzard wastes time on building tedious boring tasks, pet battles for example, rather than make the game more interesting by focusing on what makes the game good. No one plays wow to play with pokemon.

there are more people who spend the majority of their time on pet battles than pvp

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 11:56 PM ----------

Originally Posted by jbombard

Working on alts helps to prevent burnout, but when your main requires 90% of your time just doing repetitive boring tasks to stay current there isn't much time left. It isn't about the gear, it is about progress and when your main isn't getting any drops or making new progress, gearing up an alt can help to give some feeling of progress albeit on another char, also the differences in gameplay can help keep it fresh. At least that is how I see it.

it takes me about an hour to do my dailies and my one dungeon to get the valor i need on my main. the only time it feels like work is on tuesdays/wednesdays where i do lfr for valor.

you dont even need dailies to cap valor doing your 4 lfrs plus 1 dungeon a day would be enough.

Originally Posted by Descense

I bet dailys killed those subs. It was overkill realy.

Players who are too inept at managing their own time and setting priorities to stop doing dailies wouldn't be smart enough to unsubscribe.



Hardcore raider's reputation needs:

Klaxxi to revered, starting from honored after levelling

Golden Lotus to revered

Shado-Pan to revered, starting from honored after levelling

August Celestials to revered

With reputation gating with Golden Lotus, this requires you to do at most two sets of dailies a day, and anyone who's hardcore enough to feel they are "forced" to get the rep will have finished these reps months ago.

Originally Posted by BlahBlahFrigginBlah

i *still* disagree with those D3 stats. annual pass free copies were included. i dont consider that a sale

Even then, they sold a shit ton of the game becaused they hyped it up really well. Out of the 20 people in my guild that played it back then only 1 person still does, and hes a nutjob to be honest. I consider the longevity to be fail not the actual sale,even though I don't think they deserve a record for that. Handing out a million or more copies for almost free isnt exactly selling it.

edit:

Originally Posted by Magpai

Players who are too inept at managing their own time and setting priorities to stop doing dailies wouldn't be smart enough to unsubscribe.



Hardcore raider's reputation needs:

Klaxxi to revered, starting from honored after levelling

Golden Lotus to revered

Shado-Pan to revered, starting from honored after levelling

August Celestials to revered

With reputation gating with Golden Lotus, this requires you to do at most two sets of dailies a day, and anyone who's hardcore enough to feel they are "forced" to get the rep will have finished these reps months ago.

Most raiders actually felt the need to actualy hit exalted with klaxxi and golden lotus to get the free epics during the inital gearing up period. I myself did all the dailies from the first day I could and kept doing them until I hit exalted with every faction. At the end it was only the tillers tedium and august celestials, which were fine I guess. For some factions it was just that the time spend was off by a huge margin. Golden Lotus was just way to many quests at the end for way to little actual gain per quest. Shado Pan had just a couple of quest but a more sensible reward for each quest.

Originally Posted by Immitis

there are more people who spend the majority of their time on pet battles than pvp.

Really? Where are the stats on that? Although this expansion I could believe it because the pvp is the worst I've ever seen it while I was playing - enhancement and ele shaman neglected for a 3rd expanion. If they lost 400k + subs this early I can't imagine how bad it's going to get. They shoulod hire some elder scrolls devs.

Originally Posted by BlahBlahFrigginBlah

i *still* disagree with those D3 stats. annual pass free copies were included. i dont consider that a sale

They got the game as part of a financial contract that involved getting paid money. The fact that a one year wow subscription was bundled up with it doesn't change that.

Originally Posted by Magpai

Players who are too inept at managing their own time and setting priorities to stop doing dailies wouldn't be smart enough to unsubscribe.



Hardcore raider's reputation needs:

Klaxxi to revered, starting from honored after levelling

Golden Lotus to revered

Shado-Pan to revered, starting from honored after levelling

August Celestials to revered

And that took 2 hours a day solo. I know because I did it...our guild is server second on a server ranked in the top 50, we're not all that "hardcore". Plus LFR + raid time + all the other crap you need to do to have your toon be raid ready...we were also required to do 2's to cap for conquest upgrades for pve at the beginning of the xpac.

We grouped for dailies occasionally but people were on at odd hours of the day outside of raid time, etc.

Luckily we did LFR as a guild and most of the grind was over two months in or I would have perma-unsubbed, it was pretty much too much for me to handle long term with grad school and normal irl priorities.

Originally Posted by bigjohnburger

Really? Where are the stats on that? Although this expansion I could believe it because the pvp is the worst I've ever seen it while I was playing - enhancement and ele shaman neglected for a 3rd expanion. If they lost 400k + subs this early I can't imagine how bad it's going to get. They shoulod hire some elder scrolls devs.

How many players does Elder Scrolls have?

one thing WoW has which is amazing is its lore, why they don't try harder to bring this into questing, dungeons, raids is beyond me. To bring in panda's was a step in the wrong direction. They should of done more with the legion.

Originally Posted by Immitis

there are more people who spend the majority of their time on pet battles than pvp

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 11:56 PM ----------



it takes me about an hour to do my dailies and my one dungeon to get the valor i need on my main. the only time it feels like work is on tuesdays/wednesdays where i do lfr for valor.

you dont even need dailies to cap valor doing your 4 lfrs plus 1 dungeon a day would be enough.

With one hour + queues for LFR and more often than not getting an in progress meaning I need to que again, ends up meaning if I can finish 2 LFRs a day I am doing great and that is if I am not doing anything else. If add in doing a daily dungeon, that is 1 LFR a day and 1 dungeon and dailies while queing. All 4 LFRs is 4 days. If you play every single day, then you have what is left over after doing your dungeon for 3 days. Not everyone can play 6 hours a day seven days a week.