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

[Oftenwrongsoong]

I think subs initially skyrocketed just prior to and after Legion launched.

I think all of those "come back to check it out" subs left within 3 months and that more regular players started leaving within 6 months.

The legendary weapon/artifact system is dog shit and made for a very uninviting expansion. Which is a shame because the lore, story, and quests are AMAZING.

Just imagine what Legion could have been if there was no legendary weapon/artifact system and no Diablo-styled RNG legendary items. THAT is an expansion I'd play nonstop.

[MrLachyG]

LFR is really hurting in this department. Back in vanilla-wotlk, players kept playing motivated by the goal of experincing the content of raids eventually, even if they were 1-2 tiers behind. It was still a goal and an achievement to reach - no matter how much you were behind. In return, the game was very immersive, and you knew the content was hard to beat when you were in a raid. That immersive feeling is lost. Now the new content is free to experience in 1 week, so you can try it and leave. It's a problem that is nothing new, so I would assume nothing much changed with subs.

Actually LFR probably keeps subs - people who are old school now have jobs, families etc now don't have time to commit to a solid block of raiding so they do a quick LFR instead

[RoKPaNda]

LFR is really hurting in this department. Back in vanilla-wotlk, players kept playing motivated by the goal of experincing the content of raids eventually, even if they were 1-2 tiers behind. It was still a goal and an achievement to reach - no matter how much you were behind. In return, the game was very immersive, and you knew the content was hard to beat when you were in a raid. That immersive feeling is lost. Now the new content is free to experience in 1 week, so you can try it and leave. It's a problem that is nothing new, so I would assume nothing much changed with subs.

If anything LFR keeps people playing. LFR is good for WoW, whether people with a superiority complex hate it or not.

[Shanko]

down, its the only way to get concrete changes imo. game sucks atm

[Teri]

While 7.2 might have some return for the class hall/mount stuff etc. It's mostly existing or expired subs, and hardly any new players coming back for those patches.

[AlmightyGerkin]

Historically WoW subs always spiked up when new expansion was released, to slowly go down (TBC/WotLK might be exceptions as WoW was still young back then).
What I think is keeping WoW still alive are the new kids. Older WoW players like myself usually outgrow spending a lot of time in a MMORPG. Responsibilities catch up to us...

Agree with this 100%. As much as we'd love to sit on a game for a long time. Some older wow players pass the torch to the younger ones an we have to think about real life.

[brigada]

im experiencing login queues almost daily, EU-Frostmane

[TheVaryag]

Subs were climbing when the game was young. They climbed because there were new players to bring in. That resource was exhausted.

Your memory of a "vibrant community" is selective, since you don't remember the players you didn't interact with.

I'm sorry what? Kokolums Is correct, they -were- doing something correct In TBC and Wrath for people to still be coming, obviously the subs can't keep climbing to high heavens but It was a great game. To me TBC was the best time In the game but hey. It is true that LFG channel removal, adding LFR and LFG functionality to randomly pug you Into a group were one of the factors to WoW's constant sub fall.

What was the biggest factor I feel was the fact most people were Invested storywise up until Wrath due to playing Warcraft 3, Imean who wouldn't want to kill Arthas and be like "I'm done with WoW, bye!" but some people felt there has to be more, great and amazing story telling to be had.... they were mostly wrong, as Cataclysm ruined everything, brought In more "Casuals" who could get anything nearly efortlessly, boosting became rampant where even high end guilds are boosting people, sometimes for real money as the recent actions taken against those kind of people Is anything to go by.

On a certain unnamed WoW vanilla server, but you know which one, wink nudge I've had two dungeon runs so far, Ragefire Chasm and Wailing Caverns, both groups who loved the game, the difficulty of It, the unforgiving nature of the mobs, the fact you had to tank/heal/dps/dps/dps and couldn't just let the tank run ahead and kill everything for you before you even reach It. Dungeons In Retail WoW, In Legion have become speedrunners where nobody bloody cares about the dungeon they just wanna run It as fast as they can.

If you can't dedicated to Warcraft you didn't get far, and you shouldn't be playing. Imean you could, but you'd not get as far as others and that's fine, but don't expect to be given free shiz out of nowhere, or for kicking nuts around for 5 minutes that's not Interesting content.

On that unnamed server, I had the most fun on wow since TBC/Wrath, I made friends and not just In dungeonings, but during questing - community Is a factor In WoW and Blizzard knew that back then, they designed certain places to reflect that, If you had friends to help you had a better time. It promoted friendship, grouping, hell even TALKING... you go to a random pug In Legion all anyone can say Is "You suck lol, why'd you pull that idiot..." It's like... not even a hi, hello how are you? People have gotten toxic In Legion, and It's partly the peoples fault and the game not encouraging team play as It did back from Vanilla through TBC and up till Wrath...ish.

It doesn't matter the game was "Young", there's no Interesting story to follow anymore, timetravelling dragons, and Interdimensional demons that we killed back In Warcraft 3 but we didn't hence the whole point of that game ruined? Content that Is so easy It's laughable and even the FIRST launch version of the game Is more fun and challanging than the one 12 years later... If they kept to the same Ideals, the same Ideas of community, group quests, proffesions actually being helpful, utility abilities they removed from classes for no reason for example:

Lichborne from DKS
Hunter Traps
Warrior Stances
Mage abilities from all 3 schools of magic - you're supposedly a mage whose been around for 12 years, yet all the spells you can do Is fire, fire and more giant balls of fire? Where's my frost spells, arcane spells?
Where's the utiltiy of the mage In the 3 schools of magic that he had
.


And that's only off the top of my head

[Kantoro]

There is no "Don't care" option, so I didn't vote.

[gushDH]

There is no "Don't care" option, so I didn't vote.

That's the "Don't care" option.

[Deleted]

subscribers are always going down, because that is normal business and when a new addon is announced they will go up again.
sublety rogues on the other hand always go up in dps, because they are very strong

[hulkgor]

UP UP UP DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN UP UP UP DOWN DOWN DOWN UP UP UP DOWN DOWN DOWN.....

UPs are new expansions and patches.
Downs are the periods between them.

[Doffen]

Whats for certain is that WoW will die. But so will we. It might even be that we die before WoW does.

Subs are going down? Probably. By alot? Nah. Did it go up when legion launched? Yes. Do players who like the game care though? Nah.

[Mordian]

hmm I like it

[Grimnakh]

Of course theyre going down, its mid expansion. This is like a climate change denier posting a poll before winter "Do you think the temperature is getting warmer or colder or staying the same?", its a dumb question.

[Deleted]

Actually LFR probably keeps subs - people who are old school now have jobs, families etc now don't have time to commit to a solid block of raiding so they do a quick LFR instead

If anything LFR keeps people playing. LFR is good for WoW, whether people with a superiority complex hate it or not.

It's not really correct. There are many people who feels the negative sides of lfr. It's ruins the first-level experience, because lfr was so easy. You don't connect it with anything challenging in that regard. It decrease immersion in a game, because killing important figures are a walkover. People who might otherwise feel it was an achievement, will rather feel it as a "that's all" moment. And THAT hurts the game.

If some people are happy to sign for a month to do lfr and then quit, then it's not keeping people in - it rather makes people unsub once they feel they accomplished it. People should be content with normal modes, the flexible sizes, if you can't do that, then you should wait until the raid is soloable the following expansion.

Furthermore, if you do lfr, lfr takes more time than clearing it with a guild you are in. No matter how bad people are. It's not easier to just do lfr because you have life commitments, it shouldn't be your choice. It should be your choice to do normal modes, if you want the bare minimum. It's still easy, but now the experience is enhanced because you made an effort into doing it.

LFR hurts the game, because it's human nature to take the easiest path. I had people in wotlk who was casual as casual can be, was as keyboard turning as possible. They still went into heroics (mythics equivalent) eventually, maybe the tier or two below. They made it through the hardest content eventually, not just experiencing it. But they worked for that, and it didn't take them anything near the time to reach 35 AP on your weapon. That's definitive a good and healthy way to make raids - how it was in wotlk is the prime example of accessibility in raids while keeping immersion and the feeling of achievement.

LFR just don't do anything good.

[Tojara]

I'd assume that it's up a decent amount from the end of WoD, but it's probably been in decline after the first month of Nighthold, which with the numbers they released (although very cryptic) would seem to line up properly.

Numbers are always highest at launch and dwindle. They start up, then they go down, and then some portion gets put back in on a major patch. Pretty much has happened through it's lifetime, except during the games infancy when it was technically still growing.

Game isn't growing anymore, and that's to be expected from a game that was made 12 years ago. Everybody knows it exists, and anybody who has had any interest in playing it has already played it or no longer plays it, which is where we are at today.

The more interesting question is how well it's maintained subscribers since the start of the expansion up until this point. But as far as the poll goes, it always is going to be down. There is no way that the peak at the beginning of the expansion has been eclipsed at any point. I will say this however, that a lot more casual people that I've witnessed over my 12 year tenure with the same guild have stuck around for a far greater amount of time than they did in the past. Typically the people I use to raid with over that time come back for the start of the expansion and dip out after a month or so. A couple have left, but most of them still play fairly actively, which says to me that the causal community in the game is probably better than previous expansions. That might just be our guild climate and what we do to keep people entertained though, so it's just an anecdote and nothing more.

The success of the expansion in my eyes isn't so much in total subscriber numbers it would be more if they can keep the majority of the player base entertained until the launch of the next one. Realistically that's the only way they can actually 'grow' anymore. The past few expansions have lost a good chunk of people after launch or during the final stretch of said expansion (SoO and HFC for instance). If they got to the next expansion with more or less the same that they had during the first couple months of launch, that would tell me that it's probably the most successful expansion they have had.

[Serath]

I voted down but the honest truth is that WoW is an old game. Yes there are spikes for new content and expansions but in general the population will have a downward trend. That's okay and I'm going to keep playing as long as they keep making content which will likely be for many more years.

[SirBeef]

Going of purely anecdotal evidence I would say up. I have characters on 6 servers, two completely full that have always been full. The other 4 are usually low and have been combined with at least one other server. Two of those routinely say mid to high during prime time, which has never happened even with expansion launches. The other two have had queues to get into during prime time at least once a week. Along with that, I have had more active friends on my Friends list and Bnet list than I have had in a very long time.

So just going off that I would say they are going up. If I were to make an actual guess I would say they saw a spike with the expansion launch, and the patches and raid releases, and dips in between.

- - - Updated - - -

I voted down but the honest truth is that WoW is an old game. Yes there are spikes for new content and expansions but in general the population will have a downward trend. That's okay and I'm going to keep playing as long as they keep making content which will likely be for many more years.

Exactly. I never let how many subs there are effect me. It's still a great game that I get hundreds to thousands of hours a year in entertainment and joy out of. But Blizzard has been frank about it since say one. That there a lot of people that leave every month. There were just more new people signing up for WoW in the early years to off set the dips we see now.

[Divinexve]

As of right now? For sure down