What u feel Blizzard thinks about the state of WoW

[Spoonman]

Yes it might be confusing as im having a hard time to explain myself

Watching Blizzcon in october i was srsly overvelmed in how blizzard was talking about the game. It felt like they were sure that WoW will last like another 10 years and they were super excited for what they have planned for us next etc etc

Looking at forums it feels like wow is bascily dead in a few years, at least the majoirty of the player base

How aware of the situation do u think Blizzard are?
What do u feel blizard think?
I mean data over the sub amount must say something at least

To me it feels more like they dont really seem to give a damn about declin subs, they are still sticking with their plans and schedule.
Never hurrying any content out and doesnt really seem to care that the game is basicly dead (FOR ME at least) until WoD arrives. (Ye i know, not for all cba the discussion)

Thoughts?

[pallyopness]

Yes it might be confusing as im having a hard time to explain myself

Watching Blizzcon in october i was srsly overvelmed in how blizzard was talking about the game. It felt like they were sure that WoW will last like another 10 years and they were super excited for what they have planned for us next etc etc

Looking at forums it feels like wow is bascily dead in a few years, at least the majoirty the player of base

How aware of the situation do u think Blizzard are?
What do u feel blizard think?
I mean data over the sub amount must say something at least

To me it feels more like they dont really seem to give a damn about declin subs, they are still sticking with their plans and schedule.
Never hurrying any content out and doesnt really seem to care that the game is basicly dead (FOR ME at least) until WoD arrives. (Ye i know, not for all cba the discussion)

Thoughts?

maybe its because the forums take things out of context and act like things are worse than they are. blizzard has FACTS....this forum has THEORIES. much much different things.

[Frozenbeef]

According to the wow forums the game has been dead since vanilla so it's best not to even consider them when looking at the health of the game :P

[Bloodjunky22]

to be honest id say forums are not a good way to base your opinion of the game. Its great to be able to throw out ideas or vent concerns with the game on them, its not a great way to actually judge how the game is doing. declining subs does not exactly imply that those players arent coming back or left because they dont like the game anymore. . .sometimes people just shift priority in life and have 0 time to commit so they unsub. ive done it a couple times personally when ive started new jobs etc...on another note i generally cash in some vacation time when new expacs drop so i can level up faster and enjoy content rather then bustin ass at work all day and then trying to bust ass in game too. basically imo people dont look at the big picture, MILLIONS of people play this game. . . . loosing some is going to happen period. . .and i for one am glad blizz doesnt publicly show much concern for loosing subs, and continue to be optimistic about what they have in store for us rather then "meh. . .we gots some bosses for you to kill"

[Dragore]

Yes it might be confusing as im having a hard time to explain myself

Watching Blizzcon in october i was srsly overvelmed in how blizzard was talking about the game. It felt like they were sure that WoW will last like another 10 years and they were super excited for what they have planned for us next etc etc

Looking at forums it feels like wow is bascily dead in a few years, at least the majoirty of the player base

How aware of the situation do u think Blizzard are?
What do u feel blizard think?
I mean data over the sub amount must say something at least

To me it feels more like they dont really seem to give a damn about declin subs, they are still sticking with their plans and schedule.
Never hurrying any content out and doesnt really seem to care that the game is basicly dead (FOR ME at least) until WoD arrives. (Ye i know, not for all cba the discussion)

Thoughts?

I am a web designer and I get over excited about the things that I do. It's because I love what I do, so why is it hard to believe they do to? God I hope it will last 10 years no one can release a game thats better it seems.

Majority of the player base you are referring to are the extreme minority of people who complain constantly. Majority of people still love the game.

I think Blizzard is very aware of the situation of their game. They are so aware the game is still the largest MMO after 9 years. They would be crappy business owners if they weren't. I think Blizzard feels more pressure as of late. The gaming industry is starting to really change and they have to find ways to adapt.

[Deletedaccount1]

I was at Blizzcon and I know what you mean but at the same time it is there job to make sure that there looks alive and in an active state of development. If they acted like the game was a sinking ship then I would imagine that a lot of the community would start to think like that as well.

[Nemah]

I think Blizzard has a super important benefit that you and the rest of us don't have: their long-term vision and plans. People on these forums are notoriously short-sighted when it comes to the game, which has been slowly and subtly changing / evolving for years.

Blizzard on the other hand knows what the long-term, end-goal is and obviously they think it's good.

[tratra]

Its called marketing, even if they have less subs they still make money. And nowadays i think they are making more money through microtransactions.

[Dabrix32]

Looking at the way both WoW and D3 are heading I seriously think the Devs have good intentions and are intelligent people but are being bent over and fisted by corporate greed. Diablo 3 is going to be just as bad even with a new expansion. Im in the Beta trust me all that sugar coating of so called loot 2.0 is just a lie. Still the same game with false promises. Look at where WoW was during its height in wrath compared to now. All these random changes being added are killing the game. Also most of the stuff they add just makes you scratch your head like Pet Battles. These ideas are coming out of left field and have nothing to do with the actual game. Its almost like some CEO is going "You will add this or else and people will like it" They killed 25 man raiding. OK so most people dont raid. That doesnt mean fuck over the people that do. They are ruining PvP. OK so even less people enjoy hardcore PvP that doesnt mean fuck over the ones who do. They could have easily added stuff like LFR and Flex without killing off 25 man raiding. I used to love doing GDKP raids during Wrath but since they destroyed 25 man raids havent been on a single one.

[hrugner]

Blizzard can't really let on if they have serious concerns about the game and where it's going. It simply wouldn't be in there interest as people who were on the fence would say:

"yeah, I guess they're right, I should shuffle off now."

How they feel right now?

"Well, it's been a good run, but we really need to come up with something amazing here soon. I don't think going completely over small scale mobile type games is going to be a winning long term strategy."

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Based on the WoD changes, Blizz feels like the game has too many complex, ignored, overlapping, or just useless features.

[Bathory]

Blizzard has so much content they still haven't put out, why WOULDN'T they be excited? Because of fansites like this? They don't do it for the extreme, the people who rage and complain about every little thing. They do it for the people who show up to blizzcon, who still enjoy the game despite its flaws, who are optimistic about the game's future instead of the doomsayers who are just waiting for the games demise and get more and more agitated when it continues substantial subs.

[Iseeyou]

Blizz knows wow is dead, and they try to milk as much as possible before the eso/wildstar/eqn/star cit combo hits earth.

They are probably working on next gen MMO right now.

[Somaldelhar]

i think the reason they don't care lies in the analogy "you can please all of the people some of the time or some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time"

in cataclysm, they tried to do the latter. by trying to please everyone, they effectively made it so no one was as happy. this resulted in a fluctuating player base. the first part of that would also give a fluctuating player base. not "a change in the amount of subs", mind you, i mean radically changing the people playing. this is not a good source of revenue long term. instead, they stopped catering as much to lazier players, and added much more content that people who actually want to play the game can do. for example, theres a thread that has the topic of "why not go back to the cata dungeon system for valor?". essentially, that system left people with nothing to do after doing 7 dungeons a week. by making it so accessible that anyone could do it, they had essentially made the game a much more boring version of its previous incarnations. people just sat in main cities, waiting for queues. with mists though they did a 180 and attempted to rectify this. this ostracized the "lazy" player(admittedly not all opinions on that topic come from a lack of motivation), but would result in a much more stable player base due to the amount of options of what to do. cata was too easy, too accessible for anyone. it was boring. by taking out some(not all) of that ease, they allowed for people to get back out into the world to do things with interesting content. interesting rares(with more added each patch), world bosses(similarly to rares), areas, where-as cata did not. they opened the firelands quest hub, but otherwise there was nothing new or interesting to do in the world, and even firelands was boring after a few weeks(i.e. after you finished the rep grind)

in summation, i believe that blizz doesn't care about these lost subs because its a type of "fallout" from MoP. while they will inevitably lose a small amount of the player base for their 180, they will keep a much more stable one in the long run due to simply having more to do. not necessary, mind you, just more options. whether PvP or PvE, solo or group, they have made many kinds of content for all the groups that actually wish to play, but have taken away the ability to hit "end game" with no effort whatsoever. this means those that liked it to just lazily waste time in dungeons to get to raids without actually doing anything were indeed ostracized, however, most other groups got more content this expansion then almost any time in WoW history, and their plans for warlords are even more ambitious. if anything, they are at least on the fast track to stability. god knows how long it will last, but we'll see.

[Spoonman]

I was at Blizzcon and I know what you mean but at the same time it is there job to make sure that there looks alive and in an active state of development If they acted like the game was a sinking ship then I would imagine that a lot of the community would start to think like that as well

I thought of this aswell and i forgot to post about it, thanks for brining it up

[Deleted]

Although WoW is far from actually dying, Blizz kinda knows WoD has to be a major turning point.

They had to deal with subdrops beyond their bounds the past 2-3 years, and feel as if they need to maintain their position of having the wealthiest MMO.
GC's unplanned departure can make for a fresh start in some cases, and increasing the team's size with an additional 40% might indicate they're willing to keep this game going, for obvious reasons, that is.

The game's rich lorewell seems to be drying up however. This could simply be Chris Metzen not caring about anything but Orcs.

[Spoonman]

Majority of the player base you are referring to are the extreme minority of people who complain constantly. Majority of people still love the game.

If it continues like this, in a few years i guess its only half of the 12 mil peak left, that is not the extreme minority

[crakerjack]

Things aren't dire yet... but sub loses are imminent. Blizzard knows this and is acting quick. Why do you think they're making the in-game store? They already have enough people buying from it and it's not like these people forget where they go to buy it... they just want to slap it infront of everyones face so that maybe people who didn't know anything about it might be like "oh hey, that's a neat mount ima get it!" If that wasn't the case, why put it in the game? It's not like it's hidden, it's right on their main page for everyone to go to, but now all of a sudden they want to put it in-game? What about the boost to 90? That's being put in because they want to make more money and if they charge anywhere from 20-30 bucks, that's gunna be a good profit. If their game was doing good and they were confident about it, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing now. They've already nerfed how much experience you need for each level countless times... Hell you can get from 1-60 in a week of barely playing. Blizzard will never show their lack of confidence in the game... they'll always claim it's amazing and the next expansion will be better than the last. If what i'm saying is wrong, then why has there been the sudden rush to add features to the game? Features were rare because there were no issues w/ the game, but when cata hit, we got features all over the place. At first they were kinda relevant, but now they're obviously there to keep people entertained. Prior to pet battles, if a casual player got bored of LFR or there was no friends on to play with, they'd spiral into the mindset that the game is boring and lacks content to keep them engaged.

[TheTaurenOrc]

I personally believe that they think they can't put a foot wrong. The and the 'vocal minority' that they cling to in defense of criticism is a fallacy. They are not even willing to considering that for every player who is pissed off enough about an issue, and come on the forums there might be 10,20, god knows how many that won't take the trouble to do that.

WoW was/is a great game, I mean amazing in its time. But Blizzard as a developer euhhhh.... I am not so convinced.

[ocis]

It's rather crazy to expect a game to keep a 12 million subscriber base for well over a decade and to expect its success to run on infinitely without dropping off. Even 6 million subs is wildly successful for an mmo - most companies (even the big names) are happy with 2-3 million. MMORPG's in general haven't been innovative for a long time - the genre is pretty stagnant right now and any newcomer that tries different ideas seem to fall short in the implementation. I think the reason you see so much hype about every new MMO coming out is more a reflection of people craving something new and different that actually works.

As far as listening to people on forums such as MMO-C, people who are content with the game aren't as likely to start up threads as much as people who are disappointed and looking for an avenue to vent their frustrations and stress.