Will wow survive if Legion is as bad as WoD was?

[Magnosh]

Yes, I can even bet if Legion turns out to be much worst than WoD that WoW will survive and keep going and I can bet even more that in that scenario half of the players will still pre order the next expansion before it is even made.

[Perryn]

I'm sure it'll continue after as well but if it lacks content and what content it has is unengaging and unsubstantial vs previous expansions, then it probably will be the last expansion I'll stay continously subscribed to. I've got hopes it'll be good though, time will show

[Buttonmasher]

Just want to see what the community thinks.

Very unlikely. It's arguable to say it was killed by WoD. It's still (probably) 4 million+ at the moment, but another WoD will definitely make it maybe half of that or worse.

[SunDragon]

It will probably survive, but with less subscribers.
If numbers get to low, they will probably cut some ideas for future expansions/content patches to get to the final conflict a bit faster.

[CaptainV]

If Legion is a failure like WoD was then I suspect WoW will never recover from the loss again, blizzard will all but abbandon future expansion development for the game in favor of focusing on Warcraft 4 and WoW 2.

Its more than likley Legion is a "test" to see if WoW still has marketing potential for blizzard, and if that marketing seems successful in the long haul, then they'll probably continue making wow expansions and content, but if Legion fails, then it does feel like a good place to "end" WoW.

[Deleted]

Yes. Even if legion turns into an absolute shitheap the game will still sustain a substantial population compared to most mmos based on blind loyalty and brand recognition alone. Anyone who thinks otherwise can't look past their own bias to see the blatantly obvious.

[Herz]

Ofc it will survive, this game can remain profitable for Blizz with 1m subs, maybe even less. Your enjoyment as a player is an entirely different matter.

[fiestatastic]

Yes it will survive. It's bare bones right now as is ... they stopped reporting sub numbers when it was what, 3.8 million remaining? Somewhere around there. For a publicly traded company, that is officially throwing the towel in on a project for investors and admitting it failed. They hit business rock bottom and resource allocation was lowered to maintain but it's obviously sustainable. Realistically right now they're probably around half or less subscribed than a few months ago when they pulled that plug, and that's enough to not only keep it alive but also merit some development resources to keep it going. It's not likely that a board would approve of major resources being spent to try and make a big push again, but it's also not likely that a board would want to reallocate the minimal resources currently being used on WoW seeing as how it's more likely than not a long term sustainable marginal profit that also carries a flagship brand. If Legion is terrible, people will come back for it and those people will leave, and even if it's good a similar cycle is still likely to occur, but we're probably at rock bottom active sub numbers right now and still going. WoW will probably survive for quite a long while.

[A Chozo]

Dude, the game can survive with a million players. Many mmo-rpgs do that. Hell, goddamn Dofus is still around, with a fraction of WoW's playerbase. I recognize that WoW may be expensive to produce, but remember that, even with WoD's lack of content, people still stick around. If they only did 1 patch per year, without expansions, the game could stand around.

[Ayperos]

At that point it should just go F2P. It has a store in place, so you can do what other F2P games do. I think they may even have lower sub numbers than Final Fantasy XIV does right now.

[Redroniksre]

It will survive but will probably take another big hit, so who knows what it would be at sub wise.

[McNeil]

It can probably survive, but just barely. The mainstream audience would move on by then, as most have already done during WoD. And it won't be doing a good job bringing in new players, even if they advertise it as much as they did with WoD they'd just lose all these people again in the first quarter. WoD started with 10 million, went down to 5 million and I think its still declining. So lets say Legion will bring it up to 7 million, and thats being very generous, it'd just be halved to 3.5 million in a matter of time.

If anything, I think Blizzard should plan ahead to just make a final expansion to end the whole game with. Legion kinda feels like one of these expansions, so maybe the one after that will be the one to end the game.

[Smeller]

What I have gathered among friends and ppl I played with is that Legion is WoW's probation. If Legion is as bad as WoD many ppl will be done with WoW and won't come back for another Add-On. I don't know at which point Blizz will shut down WoW but if Legion is a failure the day the shutdown happens will be rather sooner than later.

Its more than likley Legion is a "test" to see if WoW still has marketing potential for blizzard, and if that marketing seems successful in the long haul, then they'll probably continue making wow expansions and content, but if Legion fails, then it does feel like a good place to "end" WoW.

That could be the case if the critic's receptions are generally favourable. But that wasn't the case in the past. WoD didn't fail although it was awesome. It was dreadful. If Legion is great and ppl still lose interest pretty fast then it could be seen as a "test" but only then. But given the fact that patches got worse and worse the odds of Legion being bad are greater than being good.

[CaptainV]

I already knew WoD was destined for failure even before it got off the alpha table, the moment I saw them screaming "TBC ERA RAIDING" I instantly facedesked and knew "Oh shit not this TBC Elitist crap again" and all the Mythic Raiding and the new ideas of raid raid raid instantly had me thinking "this shit is gonna be a raid expansion isnt it?"

Lo and behold I was right.

Legion, feels like they're trying to add something different with "Dungeons!" Instead, but im not sure they've realized the core of the problem isnt raids, or dungeons being the end game, its simply the lack of end game in "general" that is the issue, and I fear Legion will end up being known for being a "slightly better" WoD due to its dungeons being an alternative to raiding but not necessarily a cure all for it.

The PvP looks very worrying and im not sure new arenas are even remotley enough to make people care, theres alot of people longing for a new BG or a proper world pvp map like Wintergrasp again.

Options people, options, it seems blizzard is running short on them.

Im upset they removed Thal'dranath since it seems like an easy place to put a world pvp zone if they were struggling to decide what to do with it. Again, people like choice, and by narrowing it to, raids or dungeons, it isnt fixing the issue at all.

Legion I fear will be remembered as the last great expansion of WoW before some inevitable plunge into radar silence, I feel WoW after Legion will be a very quiet game, possibly Warcraft 4 replacing it alltogether as it does all but seem world of warcraft is more than on its twilight years.

If Legion is to be the end, id want it to be an end on a high, and frankly I do feel Legion is a good "place" to end wow given that its hard to come up with a big bad that threatens the entire world as menacing as a demonic invasion threatening to destroy it.

Its a case of "what are you gonna try toppping that with?" N'zoth maybe? I hope not, because then you literally have nothing antagonist wise to the lore unless you add completley new areas and regions of the setting, which means, more retcons.

[MoanaLisa]

Of course it will. Legion made them a potful of money during the first couple of months that was enough to carry the title for a long time.

[Syferite]

Is anyone even surprised that WoW is a dying game? The devs kept screwing over loyal fans of the title. As someone who played WC3 since I was 12 and WoW since when i was 16, I will never fork out money for a Blizzard title ever again after the abomination that was WoD. It was an insult to what an MMO even stood for.

[Baconeggcheese]

Legions already shaping up to be a good expansion from what I've experienced thus far.

But for hypotheticals sake, if it were as bad as wod I think it'd depend on what you consider "dead". I don't think it'd continue to see the resources it demands for much longer if it continued to decline at the rate wod's causing. But I don't imagine it would completely die, it'll hit that base of players who just won't quit as long as new content is rolling out and they'll just downsize as needed and make content for those players.

*insert comment about how original everquest is still going*

[OreoLover]

Is anyone even surprised that WoW is a dying game? The devs kept screwing over loyal fans of the title. As someone who played WC3 since I was 12 and WoW since when i was 16, I will never fork out money for a Blizzard title ever again after the abomination that was WoD. It was an insult to what an MMO even stood for.

I wonder how much you'll pay them in the next 15 years lol.

[Sylvaeres]

yes it will survive, even if all the entitled scum is gone, loyal ones will still be here

You realize it's a product with a reoccurring monthly price tag. If we, the customers, are going to pay, we deserve to be given quality content. We don't work for Blizzard, Blizzard works for us in this relationship. If they release another train wreck like WOD, they aren't deserving of "loyalty"

[Deleted]

Even if blizzard dies their game will live on with private servers for a long time after that.