Do you think subs in Legion are going up or down?

[jtstormrage]

Subs are designed to go down and come back up again. That's why they have periscopes.

Very good

[Sam the Wiser]

I pray for this game to crash and burn each and every day.

[Deleted]

I had an impression that 7.1.5 was meant to come way earlier than it did - at least before PVP season 2. Maybe I was wrong.

I am pretty sure they fucked themselves over on this one. 7.1.5 was ment to be the 6.1 of Legion, which came 1 month before BRF. But the PvP season needed to be short this time.

[jtstormrage]

I think that the grind of legion, the RNG of gearing and the massive front loading of content is causing many players to burn out, and will cause many players to stop playing, or go casual for a bit and then stop playing.

I know a few who have stopped playing and a few who have gone casual which is not really palatable for players who have done top end gaming for years, so they will probably quit too.

[caervek]

It's deffinitely declining slowly. As with every expansion since Cata.

It accelerated greatly in WoD, and instead of admitting the mistakes they made in WoD and reverting them (I.E no flying at max level, removal of 10m mythic, etc) they doubled down on them so after the initial launch spike Legion had nowhere else to go but continue on WoD's slide of death.

[Mad_Murdock]

It accelerated greatly in WoD, and instead of admitting the mistakes they made in WoD and reverting them (I.E no flying at max level, removal of 10m mythic, etc) they doubled down on them so after the initial launch spike Legion had nowhere else to go but continue on WoD's slide of death.

If I base it purely off my server population, Legion behaved just like Wod. It's probably safe to say legion hit in or around the 10 million mark at launch and the peel off has been maybe a little faster than WoD. Again, no numbers hard to say. The only numbers I have is from the Census mod for our server. At launch, we peaked at around 2000 Alliance and 1800 horde players during peak times. Now, we see around 850 Alliance and 750 horde players on during peak times. So for our server pair at least, the burn out was a little faster then WoD, which saw us stay up to around 1100A-900H after the first 6 months. So far our low point, is around 600A and 500H during the end of Expac times.

I don't know that Legion is any worse than WoD or other Xpac. I think it's just the new cycle of gaming, play something for 2-3 months and then move on. My Youngest son seems to be the stereotypical new wave of gamers. He plays every new game hard and heavy for up to 3 months and then rarely ever goes back to it.

[rda]

It's probably safe to say legion hit in or around the 10 million mark at launch ...

No way in hell.

Legion couldn't have hit 10 million after WoD going to 5.5 in the last reported number and very likely continuing to slide further down for quite a long time after. Maybe - maybe - and that's very optimistic, stupidly so, Legion hit 8 million. That's pulling all the plugs and becoming a truer Blizzard fanboy than all those who ever posted on these forums combined. Because numbers just don't behave that way.

What you saw on your server - about the same numbers as during WoD launch - was something completely different, it was the effect of the overall number of players going down. When the overall number of players goes down, people notice and start concentrating in several big camps that they think will stay big until the end. The effect is that the population crystallizes around several big centers with everything else drying up. Big servers become bigger, everything else goes towards a zero. That's what you saw. (The next step is one or two of the formerly big centers crushing. Then everything dies.)

[Mad_Murdock]

No way in hell.

What you saw on your server - about the same numbers as during WoD launch - was something completely different, it was the effect of the overall number of players going down. When the overall number of players goes down, people notice and start concentrating in several big camps that they think will stay big until the end. The effect is that the population crystallizes around several big centers with everything else drying up. Big servers become bigger, everything else goes towards a zero. That's what you saw. (The next step is one or two of the formerly big centers crushing. Then everything dies.)

But we're not a big server. Since Wrath we've been listed as a medium pop server and even had to be merged with a server at the end of MoP because our numbers were down in the 300-400 range.

Back when we use to get numbers, people use to predict that WoW was going to lose 1 million subs for a quarter and then when they posted the numbers they lost 100k or stayed the same. So I don't know that we can just assume that they went from 5.5. to 2.3 just because that what we think happened. But I don't really have any dog in this fight. I just monitor my servers population and look at the data I have. In the past, our server population has been aligned pretty close to the Sub numbers Blizzard posted. I'm fine with the numbers being closer to 8 million then 10 for Legion launch. I can only compare Legion's launch number on my server pair with WoD's and then apply a grain of salt.

[Aeula]

They didn't change it after WoD so what makes you think they would change it after WoD 2.0?

Fair point.

[Sturmbringe]

I literally dont care. I am having fun with the game. Enjoying the raids and the occasional mythic+10.

Υa, I don't care either. Having a blast raiding in Vanilla WoW every 3-4 days. I also play Rome II:TW. I have a life too.

[McNeil]

Think its down to WoD numbers already. This expansion may be fun for those having a lot of free time on their hands, but not so much for casuals. Most of my friends and family who subbed at launch already left after a month or 2.

[Eleccybubb]

Think its down to WoD numbers already. This expansion may be fun for those having a lot of free time on their hands, but not so much for casuals. Most of my friends and family who subbed at launch already left after a month or 2.

How is it not fun as a casual player when there is boatloads of content aimed at them?

[Varitok]

Pandaria was the only expansion since Wrath that actually gained subs (Even if it was just a little bit). I miss Pandaria a lot, I had a lot of fun playing it.

[Eleccybubb]

Pandaria was the only expansion since Wrath that actually gained subs (Even if it was just a little bit). I miss Pandaria a lot, I had a lot of fun playing it.

So did I. Good lore, music and raids overall. Only raid I was a bit iffy about was Heart of Fear.

[Pull My Finger]

I really don't care.

I think that in this day and age, it's unrealistic and unnatural for WoW subs to actually go up after the initial xpac release period. The game is in an entirely different product life phase. Get over it already.

[rda]

Back when we use to get numbers, people use to predict that WoW was going to lose 1 million subs for a quarter and then when they posted the numbers they lost 100k or stayed the same. So I don't know that we can just assume that they went from 5.5. to 2.3 just because that what we think happened. But I don't really have any dog in this fight. I just monitor my servers population and look at the data I have. In the past, our server population has been aligned pretty close to the Sub numbers Blizzard posted. I'm fine with the numbers being closer to 8 million then 10 for Legion launch. I can only compare Legion's launch number on my server pair with WoD's and then apply a grain of salt.

Look, it's simple.

Yes, they stopped publishing sub numbers. But there are various global proxies we can use. Each proxy is an estimate, it has a degree of error. But that just means that the result obtained via a proxy is not exact. And if you use multiple independent proxies, the error reduces.

Here is a very simple example - let's check whether the number of players who came to try Legion at launch is higher or lower than in WoD, and roughly by how much.

One proxy is wowprogress. We open a page for tier 19, the first tier of Legion, and a page for tier 17, the first tier of WoD. Down below we see global numbers for how many guilds have killed which boss on which difficulty. It does not matter that the numbers are for guilds, what matters is that they are computed in the same way.

For Legion, the number reported for the first (easiest) boss of the first (easiest) raid on the lowest difficulty is 36371 and that is said to be 73.43% of the "whole". The "whole" for Legion, as seen by wowprogress, is thus 49,531. Let's say 50k for simplicity.

For WoD, the number reported for the first boss on the first raid on the lowest difficulty is 42070 and that is said to be 59.37% of the "whole". So, this same "whole" for WoD, again, as seen as wowprogress, is 70,860. So, 70k.

Good. So, as seen by wowprogress, if we compare by the first boss of the first tier, etc, etc, etc, Legion is about 50k/70k of what WoD was. And if we take WoD as 10 million people at launch, then Legion is 7.1 million. Easy? Easy. And I will say right now that this correlates with tons of other proxies, and given that these proxies are reasonably independent of each other (measure different things), it is pretty unlikely that they err in the same direction, etc, etc, and these ~7 million are about right.

Sum total, they can't hide it.

[Deleted]

They're going down, of course. But it has very little impact in my gameplay, so I don't care.

[Varitok]

So did I. Good lore, music and raids overall. Only raid I was a bit iffy about was Heart of Fear.

I agree with you there. Wasn't my favourite but I loved all the others and I felt the gearing was just right. I would like some more of that design philosophy back in WoW.

[Eleccybubb]

I agree with you there. Wasn't my favourite but I loved all the others and I felt the gearing was just right. I would like some more of that design philosophy back in WoW.

Indeed and you weren't forced into dailies as so many people cried about. They were an alternative gearing path through rep. MoP for me was arguably my favorite time. I loved Throne of Thunder, I loved Siege of Orgrimmar, I loved the Klaxxi story and I bloody loved the Kazoo music in Inns.

- - - Updated - - -

They're going down, of course. But it has very little impact in my gameplay, so I don't care.

Pretty much this. I play games with less players and I still do stuff with no issues.

[tumppu]

Poll is missing the "idk/idc" option. Sub numbers really do not affect or interest me in the slightest.