Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Deleted]

Legion sold 3.3 million copies on day one. WotLK sold only 2.8 million copies on day one.

To be fair, to buy WotLK on day 1 you had to stand in a mile long line in the freezing cold.
To buy Legion on day 1 you had to click a button.

[Deleted]

People this topic has to go away. And this comes from a legacy supporter.

It's just pointless arguing right now. There are a lot of trolls but on both sides equally.

I want legacy because I want to play a different game. Legion is great(!) but it's just a different game.

Hell, I would even play a tottally different title should such a classic MMO-type appear. See? It's not nostalgia, it's the oldschool MMO type I miss.

Wildstar was close but they couldnt decide on what they wanted to do with the game so they made it casually hardcore :P and nobody really wanted to play. It's just like their lore - it's not really fantasy but its neither sci-fi. It's a mix - which eventually drew me away.

[Kyanion]

To be fair, to buy WotLK on day 1 you had to stand in a mile long line in the freezing cold.
To buy Legion on day 1 you had to click a button.

Oh no doubt. Which was what the point being made was. You can't look at box sales and then try and guess anything about sub numbers. It would be nice if it were that easy, but sadly we don't get nearly enough data provided from Blizz to try and figure it out.

[Ielenia]

It's your tomb, not mine.

By the way, what you said there is a false statement. Blizzard doesn't keep things from their investors, they just don't publicly release everything anymore.

[pateuvasiliu]

What is dumbed down?

Fewer spells, fewer stats to worry about, less customisation?

[Ielenia]

You are simply stuck in the mud. WoW had 12M subscribers in the past, during WotLK. It does not now. It had more popularity and growth during "Legacy". It's growth now is simply milking current subscribers via microtransaction / Cash-Shop items, via Added-Value, in it's state of "decline".

Where is your proof of those claims?

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It's in the quarterly statements. Added value revenue supersedes intrinsic value of subscription counts. Read the statements if you are curious, they are public info.

I will leave you all with this.
Blizzard on World of Warcraft Legacy Servers: 'It's Something We're Taking Seriously'
IGN interview with World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/11/...king-seriously
06 November 2016



Ion has spoken.

That is proof of nothing, especially not of what you said about the game not having as many subscribers as before.

[Deleted]

Where is your proof of those claims?

The gist of any investors conference call since the subs started going down was "yes the subs are down, but we're making more profit than ever on added value services"...

[Kolvarg]

They gist of any investors conference call since the subs started going down was "yes the subs are down, but we're making more profit than ever on added value services"...

Not to mention activity numbers are at the moment down to roughly barely double what they were during WoD "content drought", which isn't that great (WotLK activity numbers were 4x higher than WoD "content drought", double what they are now) . Not proof, obviously, since we don't relaly know how reliable the source is, but defenitely falls within the expected considering it's simply the most likely scenario.

WoW subs have been going down for a really long time, no other expansion since TBC resulted in substantial growth, no other expansion since WotLK managed to sustain the number of subscribers. It's not a matter of the game getting worse, it's just a matter of popularity fading and income of new players slowly drying out - People who tried WoW at some point because it was popular and didn't like it are unlikely to come back no matter how good an expansion turns out to be.

It doesn't mean it isn't a good game, it doesn't mean it is not still the most successful sub-based MMORPG. It is. But it's a fact that it has been in decline for a long time, it's a fact that both MoP and WoD had initial outliers of increased subscriptions that quickly went back to the expected slowing decline. There's no reason to believe Legion will be any different - I do believe it will do a much better job than WoD at managing subscriptions in the long-term, but it is very unlikely it will end up with a number much greater than WoD or MoP did.

[Dergiab]

Compared to the 3 games before it, sure. Compared to the latter? I'd say no.

At least Cata still had decent talent trees.

Was it Cata that turned the overworld leveling to a snoozefest combat-wise or was that a later expansion? I stopped playing early WotLK.

[pateuvasiliu]

Was it Cata that turned the overworld leveling to a snoozefest combat-wise or was that a later expansion. I missed out that expansion.

Cata revamped levelling in the 1-58 world.

I for one liked the new quests so much I even made an alt to level through the zones I didn't get to, something exceptionally atypical for me, as I never do alts in any game.

[Dergiab]

Cata revamped levelling in the 1-58 world.

I for one liked the new quests so much I even made an alt to level through the zones I didn't get to, something exceptionally atypical for me, as I never do alts in any game.

I'm not talking about quests, I'm talking about mobs being a 1/3 of their "powerlevel" in combat (made up number). Was that Cata or MoP?

[Deficineiron]

While subscription numbers only reveal world-wide popularity, they don't tell the whole story. The Cash-shop, for instance makes up for much of the lost subscription revenue, as existing players pay more, for less. Legions sold 3.3M units, while WotLK had 12M active players. Lets look at that amazing aspect.

this is a really deceptive statement. you are comparing worldwide sub numbers to western box sales. china wotlk was released much later than west and didn't have expansion box sales anyway.

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I think you answered your own question. Also I think you failed to read where Blizzard receives revenue from Added-Value services nowadays instead of from subscription fees.

WoW reported 12M for WotLK. The report for Legions ... ? Missing. Last report was 5M and falling during WoD. Hardly anything close. 3.3M for Legions.

wod and legion first-day box sales were both around 3.3m. panda was around 2.7? wotlk didn't have digital license sales at least for NA so it is more useful to find and use 30-day box sale numbers if you want to compare that far back. bc is even worse as much of the playerbase wasn't even max level on release so would have delayed buying the box until they could use it.

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Legion sold 3.3 million copies on day one. WotLK sold only 2.8 million copies on day one. See how meaningless using subscriber numbers and day one copies sold is?

you are also ignoring digital vs non-digital sales impact.

[Sussemilch]

Looking forward to playing vanilla again in a couple weeks. It would be better if Blizzard offered it, but since they don't I'll play where it's available.

[Deficineiron]

These numbers are barely worth anything. If i recall correctly LK didn't even have the online purchase option at release. Feels to me you're comparing what can't be compared and worst of all based on what Blizz wants ppl to know and not the actual numbers and their importance.

and we have a winner!

[bluemoon]

Wrong thread

[Worgoblin]

Looking forward to playing vanilla again in a couple weeks. It would be better if Blizzard offered it, but since they don't I'll play where it's available.

Same here. I would be willing to pay for an official Vanilla server. But I have not been given that option. So I have no choice, I must play private servers.

[pateuvasiliu]

I'm not talking about quests, I'm talking about mobs being a 1/3 of their "powerlevel" in combat (made up number). Was that Cata or MoP?

Wasn't Cata, in Cata you still had to somewhat manage your pulls while questing.

[Deleted]

Wasn't Cata, in Cata you still had to somewhat manage your pulls while questing.

The pre-WoD stat squish made 1-60 extremely silly, since most classes could 1-2 shot just about every mob. With the recent change in Legion, normal service has more or less been resumed.

[Deleted]

Same here. I would be willing to pay for an official Vanilla server. But I have not been given that option. So I have no choice, I must play private servers.

Same here.

[Dergiab]

Wasn't Cata, in Cata you still had to somewhat manage your pulls while questing.

Allright, so it seem to be MoP that is the real culprit that started the downfall of leveling. I did a comeback during that expansion and know it was broken then.