WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers

Originally Posted by Nikanorius

I think that when they will finish the their film, the number of players will be increased, no doubt

Even if the movie will be good, the chances are low that this will bring back ex-WoW players. For example i didn't go back to LOTRO after i watched The Hobbit

Originally Posted by Lumineus

The various Windstones in Silithus can be used in conjunction with certain items to summon solo, five, and ten man boss encounters. The reason it was so rarely done is that mats required to summon the raid boss are kind of obscene, so you typically killed it with 20-40 people just to make sure it died and the mats didn't go to waste. Then to appease the hardcore base, the summoned bosses only dropped ONE piece of loot, which then only had about a 20% chance of being an epic item. It was fucking bogus.

Just to clarify some bits.

1 man bosses dropped greens and rep items.

5 man bosses dropped level 58 BoE blues that power wise were well above the typical dungeon gear and these were fairly easy to farm up, these were made often atleast on my realm, many in succession

10-40 man bosses, these were mostly ignored for reasons you gave. But clumping them up in single group like that is borderline providing false information.

Originally Posted by kazso

Even if the movie will be good, the chances are low that this will bring back ex-WoW players. For example i didn't go back to LOTRO after i watched The Hobbit

You can bet though that Blizzard will have some kind of promotion to take advantage of it. I'm not sure if LOTRO had any cause I've never followed that game. It may be in-game it may not be. Also I think it might be different when the movie is a spinoff of the video game, and not the video game is the spin off of the movie/book. You can bet sales of the book Hobbit went up cause of the movie though.

Originally Posted by kazso

It won't. It wasn't the lack of content that drove players away from MoP.


Ofcourse not, because most games are P2P or F2P

Nope, it was the fact Cata was crap and their years contract ran out.

About time these pr**ks are overpaid for the lack of effort into WoW the past 2 expansions. The complete and utter disdain that the design team has for certain specs (yes I was a ret paladin, and never happy with the perceived vs ingame role), particularly ele/enhance shaman/ret paladin vs a hybrid like druids, they were never balanced properly. And when long term half decent players tell these idiots what is wrong they just discard it, then half a year later agree that the issues were in fact what they were told 6-12 months prior, just 100% ar*ewipes, who can't admit they f**ked up big time, ALL the time. And mostly it's just so blatent to see as a player who they over or under buff, just astounding that these weasles can't see it, which sort of makes you think, THEY DELIBERATELY do it, to ensure the kiddies with 15 hours up their sleeve a day totally reroll and play FoM every 3 months, on top of the rest of the grind.

Originally Posted by Baldwyn

About time these pr**ks are overpaid for the lack of effort into WoW the past 2 expansions. The complete and utter disdain that the design team has for certain specs (yes I was a ret paladin, and never happy with the perceived vs ingame role), particularly ele/enhance shaman/ret paladin vs a hybrid like druids, they were never balanced properly. And when long term half decent players tell these idiots what is wrong they just discard it, then half a year later agree that the issues were in fact what they were told 6-12 months prior, just 100% ar*ewipes, who can't admit they f**ked up big time, ALL the time. And mostly it's just so blatent to see as a player who they over or under buff, just astounding that these weasles can't see it, which sort of makes you think, THEY DELIBERATELY do it, to ensure the kiddies with 15 hours up their sleeve a day totally reroll and play FoM every 3 months, on top of the rest of the grind.

There was a point in time where I would dismiss your post as being cynical, but after beta testing and reading the responses GC gave to in-game issues...yeah. I agree with you.

There was one particular beta thread regarding priest mana issues that went on for weeks...players complaining that they had to spam solace for most of the raid just to get their mana back, their actual healing output due to regen was pretty bad...then GC posts, "well, we'll just have to nerf solace then", and things stayed like that until well after expansion release.

Rogues were (arguably over) buffed and given a special legendary because the class wasn't being played enough, it wouldn't surprise me if they deliberately imbalanced things or made a half-assed attempt to balance things in order to encourage players to reroll every season, although there is no direct evidence to suggest that.

Originally Posted by Elite Peon

Blizz you want to keep subs up ? Make the game more accessible to casuals not hardcore players ...

Considering how pathetically casual the game has become since 3.0, I really wonder how people can still copy-paste this canned garbage...
Well, if anything, it proves that those who try to use this (lol) "argument" are probably just bots mindlessly repeating the same mantra even when it's been years since reality has gone farther than fiction...

Originally Posted by Akka

Considering how pathetically casual the game has become since 3.0, I really wonder how people can still copy-paste this canned garbage...
Well, if anything, it proves that those who try to use this (lol) "argument" are probably just bots mindlessly repeating the same mantra even when it's been years since reality has gone farther than fiction...

Raid encounters have become more and more complex. Casuals in end game are shunted into the LFR ghetto. Casual guilds that want guild raiding are basically out of luck.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Raid encounters have become more and more complex. Casuals in end game are shunted into the LFR ghetto. Casual guilds that want guild raiding are basically out of luck.

"complex" doesn't mean "more difficult". The 5-man "heroics" in WotLK had much more complex mechanisms than Vanilla instances, and were still much easier.

Anyway, the ENTIRE content has been dumbed down to oblivion precisely to cater for whining casuals, so the complain "the game isn't accessible for casuals" is the pinnacle of retardation. The only part that is maybe not accessible for all casuals is the last tier heroic raid, which is available in normal mode and LFR anyway.
How can it be even POSSIBLE to make the game "more accessible" ?

As for LFR, it exists BECAUSE casuals whined they couldn't finish everything by playing 30 mn a week, it exists BECAUSE they wanted everything "accessible", so well, I hardly see how they can complain about it - and it still makes the whining about "it's not accessible" obviously false and stupid.

This thread is still going? Jeeeeez. Ok well since we're here, who wants to place bets on the May 1st subscriber count? lol

I got 8.2 million.

Originally Posted by Akka

As for LFR, it exists BECAUSE casuals whined they couldn't finish everything by playing 30 mn a week, so well, I hardly see how they can complain about it.

Casuals in casual raid guilds were fine with the tuning of Wrath. LFR exists not because they wanted it instead, but because Blizzard wanted to have three difficulty levels so they could cater to a razor thin slice of top players. In the process, casual raid guilds are now required to either field 25 raiders or queue with strangers.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Casuals in casual raid guilds were fine with the tuning of Wrath. LFR exists not because they wanted it instead, but because Blizzard wanted to have three difficulty levels so they could cater to a razor thin slice of top players. In the process, casual raid guilds are now required to either field 25 raiders or queue with strangers.

What is stopping casuals from doing normal mode? Nothing. They can even extend the lock outs and complete a few bosses each week. The idea that LFR is the only mode casual players can do is silly. Just because a player is casual doesn't mean they are bad and can't do normal modes.

Originally Posted by rhorle

What is stopping casuals from doing normal mode? Nothing.

A disingenuous and frankly stupid argument. What is stopping them is that normal modes are tuned beyond the level of their competence and/or interest.

But you knew that.

Originally Posted by Assumi

God you fanboys never quit.

so true lol.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

A disingenuous and frankly stupid argument. What is stopping them is that normal modes are tuned beyond the level of their competence and/or interest.But you knew that.

Why are you assuming that all casuals are bad players?

Originally Posted by rhorle

Why are you assuming that all casuals are bad players?

It should have been clear what I meant by the word "casual" from the context. Do go back and read for comprehension. Casual does not mean only has a very limited time to play. That meaning has always been at best a smokescreen.

Even if WoW drops to 2M players, it will still be one of the bigger MMO-games out there. And some just will never stop playing it. Just check at D2.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

It should have been clear what I meant by the word "casual" from the context. Do go back and read for comprehension. Casual does not mean only has a very limited time to play. That meaning has always been at best a smokescreen.

Casual also doesn't mean only a bad player, so why use it in that context? It isn't a smokescreen at best. You can be a hardcore player and still be terrible at the game.

Originally Posted by rhorle

Casual also doesn't mean only a bad player, so why use it in that context? It isn't a smokescreen at best. You can be a hardcore player and still be terrible at the game.

It very often does mean a player of lesser skill, or a player who isn't as driven to improve, or a player who has a low tolerance for frustration, or a player who doesn't want to abandon friends in the name of progression.

But anyway: my argument was that there was this large group, fitting into various categories like this, that were basically flipped the bird by the Blizzard this expansion. The game didn't become "more casual" for them; it became less friendly.

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Casuals in casual raid guilds were fine with the tuning of Wrath. LFR exists not because they wanted it instead, but because Blizzard wanted to have three difficulty levels so they could cater to a razor thin slice of top players. In the process, casual raid guilds are now required to either field 25 raiders or queue with strangers.

Let me quote the part of my post you "forgot" to read :

"complex" doesn't mean "more difficult". The 5-man "heroics" in WotLK had much more complex mechanisms than Vanilla instances, and were still much easier.

Anyway, the ENTIRE content has been dumbed down to oblivion precisely to cater for whining casuals, so the complain "the game isn't accessible for casuals" is the pinnacle of retardation. The only part that is maybe not accessible for all casuals is the last tier heroic raid, which is available in normal mode and LFR anyway.
How can it be even POSSIBLE to make the game "more accessible" ?