WoW Down to 7.7 Million Subscribers, Activision Blizzard Purchases Vivendi's Shares

Originally Posted by Durandro

Virtual Realms will help. Eventually it might lead to the concept of seperate servers disappearing, but one step at a time.

Wishful thinking. It's not just my server that is dead, it's my realm pool. Likely the virtual realm(at least if it is roughly equal to my current realm pool) will look like my server 2 years ago...which is when the mass exodus began to hit us hard and gained blizz a lot of money in transfers. If it will work like I think then they will esentially put us back on a level where they can profit most(through paid transfers).

Originally Posted by Durandro

Pretty much this.

Still boggles my mind how many people hang around here to complain about a game they appearently don't like or play anymore.

I agree with both of you ...i couldn't "afford" letting my sub die 2-3 years ago since i was raiding with friends and actually had the time to devote to it ...you know, getting mats for consumables, reading strategies, acquiring badges and gear ...but RL kicks in harder and harder the older you get so the time you can actually play this and any other game is diminished to the point you have to take priorities.

I still want to play WoW but i'm pretty sure, and kinda saddened, i will never play it like i did 2-3 years ago.

Well, as long as they have another venues beyond the subs money to make money they could as well making the same sort of money.

Oh yeah, the in game shop.

BTW's, no wonder why The Ghost Crab was touring in china, there's where the bulk of the subs come from, they gots to promo there.

Im one of these lost subs, it's really not that WoW is bad in any way, it's just old, burnout etc, hopefully next expansion brings in some new nice things to pick up this game again, i have yet to find another mmorpg that comes even near the fluidity of how things work in WoW and the addon support is fantastic and useful.

RIP in peace World of Warcraft 2004-2013

well, yeah this game is too friggin old. Besides mmo's like wow(if there is any) make one exhausted after some years. Basicly i unsubbed when i noticed this mmo is like a browser game in disguise. Its basicly farm, farm more farm and all the same stuff you do, just a tad more complicated and time consuming.

All i ever wanted was a good rpg with a truly smart and amazing story line, while still havin the same atmosphere that wow has, this package together with online pvp. I do not need raids and cooperating with others. Intersting, if you cooperate with others in a browser game you make faster and more advances in such a game, too.

Also i see, the story and the world in world of warcraft is very static and allows for little changes, cause its a mmo.

Do wacraft 4 finally, and continue with a better system.(B2P, F2P) And less static world with little progress in comparission to the RTS games.

Originally Posted by Sorry

RIP in peace World of Warcraft 2004-2013

I think you meant: RIP in Peace WoW of Warcraft

Right?

Originally Posted by Ardourdan

Needs to become a much darker game to prevent the ageing player base from leave :/

well, thats true, PG12 doesn't work nowdays and it was weird in 2004, too. never met someone that wasn't at least 16, and this 9 years ago....sad that the RTS games were much darker than this, no matter if you play wc2 or wc3. Even the videos show that. orcs are orcs not hippies, arthas is a cunning murder not a big fool in armour who never take of his helmet like that idiot in spaceballs.....geez. lol

I personally.. LOVE WoW, still, i stay true to this game because I know the dev's fight to continually expand it. it's not like most of the games out there due to constant expatiation and re-build. They never keep it exactly the same is what i like about it.
I feel the "wow has hurt alli, this that, the other thing." well yeah they have to keep it interesting, forever moving, if they dont change something people complain, if they leave it alone...people complain...eaither way people WILL FOREVER COMPLAIN so... what would you do if you where a massive company, your prized elder game going down the tubes and your scrambling to squeeze the life back into it?
It's hard i imagine to see that happen. they do have a lot of other games they are now focusing on because they face the simple fact...WoW is dyeing and they will stop it soon to make a newer version or make one of there other games like WoW. inevitably the train stops, you get off, hop on another one.

I for one will stay on this train until it run's aground.
This game is a great game, whatever it's hitches may be, it's a game, enjoy it while it's here
and who knows, they may make it Free to play once they stop expanding it, and they may make small visual updates here in there. like making the old races have better haircuts/visuals and skins.
or add more mounts to the store and such. so i have hope :3

Originally Posted by zrankfappa

I think you meant: RIP in Peace WoW of Warcraft

Right?

9.5/10, would read again.

It really is time to go free to play. Reverse the downward momentum and get an influx of new players and old players returning.

just a setback...

Whats gone wrong? It's simple really - they had a BRILLIANT raiding system back in Wrath. You could faceroll Naxx for some easy starter gear. Then you could go into Ulduar, selecting your raid size (10 or 25 - with 25 man rewarding better loot), and if you found normal mode too easy (and there were some EASY bosses in there in comparison to what we have now!) you could then crank up the difficulty.

Much the same applied to TOGC and ICC.

Then they messed it all up. First bosses in Cata raids were a complete pain, even on 10 man. Where were the easy bosses you could gear up from? Even 5 man hcs were a pain. You couldn't even craft anything good. Result? People were completely unable to make progress and start quitting in droves. Blizzard nerf the 5mans a little, and re-release some troll dungeons. Firelands is then a similar story.

Eventually, they bring out DS. Ta-da! Easy first few bosses!
Just as it looks like they've re-learned how to make appropriatly-tuned bosses, then they REALLY mess up, by releasing LFR.

The main problem with LFR (beside it being boring) is that it completely removes the social aspect from raiding - you don't need to interact with anyone, it's basically a single player mode. You can literally AFK through the whole thing. This is seriously bad news for an MMO for some pretty obvious reasons.
There's also the problem that there's no "progress time" in LFR - you literally clear it in one night. This is bad news as well, as you clear all the content almost instantly, thus "finishing the game" and then quitting, having seen all there is to see. This is terrible for a subs model where you want to keep people playing.
Then there's the burnout triggered by having to run the same raid on different difficulties for THAT set bonus, or THAT trinket.

MoP is essentially the same as Cata, but with LFR from the start and faceroll 5 mans. It fails exactly the same ways too. Hopefully, flex mode will fix some of these issues. I, for one, hope to never have to do LFR ever again, even on alts. Oh, and I've never seen the daily grind as worthwhile either since all I ever get from those coins is gold anyway. (Big fail from Bliz on that one)

But the main thing that's caused a mass exodus has been the empty realms. It's the empty AH and lack of guilds on a server that's driven away a lot of people I used to know. Hopefully they'll have that fixed soon with cross realm raiding and AH, etc. But really, they should have had that sorted years back.

OK I play wow from when it was 12mil and now it is 7,7 np the game is still the same

Looks like the blizzard store hats helped Bobby raise enough cash.

Originally Posted by toychristopher

It really is time to go free to play. Reverse the downward momentum and get an influx of new players and old players returning.

7.7 million players = time to go f2p?

you do realize that 90% of f2p games don't even break 1m right?

Originally Posted by dhru

This is stupid...

Games can renewal too! "World of Warcraft 2" with frostbite 3 engine, without money eater managers, with thousands of designers, without subscription, one gamebox + 4 months/new content for free, no store, no feast of strengths, dramatic story lines, and developers who can read players posts about the game...

The WoW is not a problem, but the team behind that...

After Wildstar: 'Welcome WoW in the dozens of MMOs with 1-5 million subs" They deserve it!

No subscription, no store? How exactly do you plan on them paying the millions in the frostbite 3 engine, retraining staff to learn the new engine, developing all new assets involving models, textures, sounds, music, voice acting, and so on?

You want PR that is consistently on the forums giving non-transparent answers? How are you going to pay for that staff? And the QA department to make sure the game is in good standing?

Keep riding that Wildstar hype train, we don't even KNOW what payment model they have yet, so how can you think that they would be more successful than WoW? Hell even GC confirmed that a large portion of people who unsub simply do so because of time/money. Why would Wildstar be any different?

Let's be honest people, you guys REALLY take for granted how much the development team is involved at all. They deal with 8 MILLION players on a daily basis, a minority of them consistently posting garbage on the forums that is just rampant bitching, have you seen half the shit that GC gets on his twitter? He probably ignores >30 people a day that are just mad as hell over PTR changes and give no constructive criticism. Honestly, blizz devs may not be as vocal as old school mmo devs use to be, but devs from EQ didn't manage the largest mmo in the history of gaming, so it's a bit of a different story, don't you think?

I'd say all in all compared to a lot of mmos we're pretty damn lucky to have the balance we do as in the past 5 years I don't think a single MMO even comes close to being as well made as WoW has in terms of quest lines, plot, balance, class balance and creation (monks very intuitive imo, dks were amazing on release, etc).

I'm not saying we should feel entitled but to say that the development team is the problem is the most ludicrous thing I've yet to hear and I've heard people quit because "players have too much health now"

Originally Posted by lazzy

Actually we are not.

I'm saying people enjoy hard content because they feel rewarded when they finsh it and get a good item. The reward has to be REWARDING. Brawlers guild doesn't offer anything people care about neither does Challenge modes. Hence why seriously not many people do them, there is no point.

Let's take Xt in Ulduar for example since a lot of people managed to get to this boss. You did him on normal sweet you get some good loot. You figure your guild has the gear to do it on hard mode. Now you find yourself in the same raid doing the same boss but you're now good enough to activate the hard mode and manage to actually pull it off. That's rewarding. Brawlers guild and Challenge modes are not the same thing.

They are not rewarding in a traditional way, but they are harder than things that actually reward gear. But I wouldn't say "Let's make Brawler's give out ilvl 540 loot when you reach rank 10". The best loot should always come from group activities in WOW, not the hardest activity. But Brawler could give out at least some loot even if not BIS. That may be true, but that still doesn't have much to do with game losing subs since in any case the percentage of people doing hard stuff in this game is really low.

Originally Posted by toychristopher

It really is time to go free to play. Reverse the downward momentum and get an influx of new players and old players returning.

Based on the changes to the Blizzard Store that are proposed, I can see it within a year.

heh does not look good :/

Originally Posted by Tails

They are not rewarding in a traditional way, but they are harder than things that actually reward gear. But I wouldn't say "Let's make Brawler's give out ilvl 540 loot when you reach rank 10". The best loot should always come from group activities in WOW, not the hardest activity. But Brawler could give out at least some loot even if not BIS. That may be true, but that still doesn't have much to do with game losing subs since in any case the percentage of people doing hard stuff in this game is really low.

No shit low percentage of people do hard content. You DON'T have to do it anymore lol.....

I don't even get your argument. I did hard content in Vanilla and BC i stopped in LK because you don't have to anymore. You used to HAVE to do hard content to get through the game now its optional. That's the problem.

People don't care to do Heroic raiding Vs LFR because LFR is easier and you get to see the same shit. The entire point of getting good gear before Cata (LFR) was because you needed it to progresses to see the next tier of bosses. You don't need to do this anymore.

If everyone is doing the "easy" way to see all the content you can seriously be done with every patch in 3-5 hours. That's the problem.