I'd love to of seen WoW sub numbers before 7.2 dropped.

[rda]

Classic wasn't an expansion, but still...

...yes it did. There have always been fluctuations. It's only natural in a subscription based game. I noticed you didn't quote the part where I pointed out that until Wrath the overall result was a positive climb in subscriptions despite the natural fluctuations between the releases of content and expansions.

No. Big surges of activity on launches / patches and big declines of activity after that only started in WoD and continued in Legion. Cata and prior expansions had no noticeable declines at all. MoP had a very slight decline that was about a third of a way from "no decline" to "big decline the scale of WoD / Legion".

The "it's seasonal" (c) Ion was not the case before WoD, someone somewhere maybe was "seasonal" but this was unnoticeable on aggregate measures.

[HordeFanboy]

The truth* but good try. No it doesn't, Legion is 100x better than WoD.

Also, A Lannister always pays his debts is the correct way.

Tyrion said it without "a" lol.

[rda]

lol@this post.

The guy you are replying to is correct.

[Darsithis]

No. Big surges of activity on launches / patches and big declines of activity after that only started in WoD and continued in Legion. Cata and prior expansions had no noticeable declines at all. MoP had a very slight decline that was about a third of a way from "no decline" to "big decline the scale of WoD / Legion".

The "it's seasonal" (c) Ion was not the case before WoD, someone somewhere maybe was "seasonal" but this was unnoticeable on aggregate measures.

I didn't say they were as big as WoD. That was pretty huge, what was it, some 5m?

Thinking about it logically, not everyone who signed up for World of Warcraft stayed, even in its earliest days. People signed up because friends told them to, and then they stopped playing. People lost interest or just were never all that interested to begin with. There has always, always, been a down-tick in subscriptions from the get-go. However, for the first 5 or 6 years, the overall trend from quarter to quarter was an increase (until about 12m subs or so).

Again, more thinking about it: people have always returned to things as they've been updated. New seasons of TV shows, for instance, have usually seen an uptick in viewers at the start, with it petering out over time (depending on popularity). For comparison, we can call these seasons "patches". The same principle applies to gaming, to music, even to book series. Companies usually see an increase when new content is released as people check it out. Some stay, some go.

Like I said earlier, for the first 5 or 6 years of WoW's history, despite the bumps and dips in subscription numbers around patches, the overall trend was up, and drastically up (especially in the first few years). In Cata, that trend went down for the first time as people leaving outstripped the people joining, and, over the course of each quarter, the numbers dropped. As expansions were released, that would tick back up, but because WoW has peaked, the descent continued and probably still continues.

In summary: what I said is still true. Quarter to quarter, until Wrath, subscriptions rose despite the valleys and hills between, after Wrath subscriptions dropped, with each patch and expansion showing those valleys and hills more prominently.

[Zeth Hawkins]

It doesn't matter.

Please do not presume to speak for others and their experiences.

There being fewer players does not affect you, and that is fine.
There being fewer players does affect lazzy.

You may think that you know the true reason(s) for lazzy's experiences, as shown by the two suggestions you give, but even you could not give absolute certainty of your belief. This is where we are: his belief versus your belief. As neither can be proven, neither is objectively correct or incorrect.

The existence of fewer active players does matter -- to some.

[Deleted]

I'd love it if people stopped substituting "have" with "of".

Keep up the good fight.

Big surges of activity on launches / patches and big declines of activity after that only started in WoD and continued in Legion. Cata and prior expansions had no noticeable declines at all.

While true, it's difficult to really analyse the situation because we only ever saw the total numbers. Blizzard has said some years ago that over 100 million accounts existed at that time, most inactive. Right now ups and downs in subs is, I suspect, mostly older players coming back and leaving again. But back then there were tens of thousands new players joining all the time - hiding some of the effects of the temporary but frequent subscribers.

[Echocho]

This literally happens every expansion, game launches and population booms, then people drop off for a while. Then 6 months later when a major content patch launches people come back. It has been like this for 10 years lol

Except for the ones where you had a more gated power progression with badge or valor gear. Sure there was a drop between patches but much much smaller.

[God Save The King]

WoW is losing subs and is dying. Sub counts have been solidly going down for 4 xpacs, and they're down to early vanilla levels. I don't want WoW to die, I want the current game design to die so that the game can get back on track for recovery to the game I loved. Unfortunately it seems the game has to hit rock bottom before the designers can accept that the current path is a failure.

Thank you for proving my point hahaha

[Maudib]

Classic wasn't an expansion, but still...

...yes it did. There have always been fluctuations. It's only natural in a subscription based game. I noticed you didn't quote the part where I pointed out that until Wrath the overall result was a positive climb in subscriptions despite the natural fluctuations between the releases of content and expansions.

Yes there are always some people leaving... but in BC/Wrath... it was MUCH less of an attrition rate than the past few expansions. WoD started with over 10 million subs... and dropped to easily under 5 million in 6 months.

BC started at around 8 million subs and grew to 11.5 million over 2 years. Wrath picked up there and peaked at 12 million subs and maintaining over 11.5 million for over 2 years. Clearly the game does not offer the same "staying power" as it once did.

At no time until Cata, did WoW EVER lower in subscription counts. No matter how you spin it... 6-8 million people no longer play wow that once did. Of course some of them simply lost interest in an MMO... but many, many die hard WoW fans quit playing because of the poor development choices made. Much of which were the casualization of the game... Dungeon finder, LFR, dumbing down and pruning of talent trees, the gutting of professions, the shortening of leveling time in a new expansion, the switch from creating an overabundance of content to creating mindless, repetitive grinds.

Perhaps the biggest killer of the game is how they reset current levels. i.e. adding more trait levels but keeping the mechanism for earning them the same. Now mob scaling with iLevel? Absolutely gross.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...on-Subscribers

[XDurionX]

in my dreams this "hop in hop out" player faction finally hop out and never come back. so blizzard can start catering again to the mmorpg crowd and supporting longterm customers, instead catering with cheap shit to that shortterm mass audience idiots.

what a wet dream to play a wow with just 1-2 mio players, that REALLY play that game, play it like you play mmorpgs, and a blizzard supporting this with longterm high quality game design. what a wet dream...

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yep. you are right. obviously thats the reason why blizzard stopped showing them. seems to work

When they "start catering again to the mmorpg crowd" WoW will die instantly. It's the - i cite - " shortterm mass audience idiots" that pay for your content as well. All these know-it-alls on these forums would kill WoW in no time with their "solutions".

[MoanaLisa]

Yes there are always some people leaving... but in BC/Wrath... it was MUCH less of an attrition rate than the past few expansions.

That may well be true but the fact remains that you don't know the base attrition rate then or ever. All you can tell is that for the first few years more people were signing up and staying for a while than leaving. After some time more people started to leave than new players were signing up or returning.

That would make perfect sense for a game that ages over the years.

Comparing quarterly results without understanding anything of the subscriber churn doesn't really say much of anything.

[Saverem]

7.2 is far from "rushed" it offers a lot of quality of life improvements that I really wouldn't have wanted to wait longer for. Also, didn't really see a population drop before 7.2 /shrug NH is still pretty fresh for most people.

OMG THEY ARE PACING STORY! yea, they always do that, but people have really really short memories.

No, it was pretty rushed. I've been playing the game since 04 and this has been one of the buggiest patches I've ever seen. Not the buggiest, but definitely top 5 for sure.

[BananaHandsB]

I have to agree this patch did seem rushed a bit. I cannot believe the number of MAJOR bugs this patch went live with. There are always bugs, but never this bad. It took them over 3 days to get divine storm working again for rets. How does that make it to live?

[Onikaroshi]

No, it was pretty rushed. I've been playing the game since 04 and this has been one of the buggiest patches I've ever seen. Not the buggiest, but definitely top 5 for sure.

I have to agree this patch did seem rushed a bit. I cannot believe the number of MAJOR bugs this patch went live with. There are always bugs, but never this bad. It took them over 3 days to get divine storm working again for rets. How does that make it to live?

The biggest major bug was the moving are dmg bug (DS, Chi Burst, etc) and it didn't even occur on PTR, how can you fix something before release if it wasn't happening during testing?

It's a weird bug, they work in instances but not the open world, which probably makes it REALLY hard to track down, hence the 3+ days....

Not every bug that comes out on live is in the ptr to fix... no this patch was not rushed, you just want to see i that way.

[Kallisto]

That may well be true but the fact remains that you don't know the base attrition rate then or ever. All you can tell is that for the first few years more people were signing up and staying for a while than leaving. After some time more people started to leave than new players were signing up or returning.

That would make perfect sense for a game that ages over the years.

Yup age would be one thing.


But also the more leaving than joining also occurred at the same time the last big name in WC was defeated ending a story arc many would consider time to roll the credits.

[Saverem]

The biggest major bug was the moving are dmg bug (DS, Chi Burst, etc) and it didn't even occur on PTR, how can you fix something before release if it wasn't happening during testing?

It's a weird bug, they work in instances but not the open world, which probably makes it REALLY hard to track down, hence the 3+ days....

Not every bug that comes out on live is in the ptr to fix... no this patch was not rushed, you just want to see i that way.

Don't forget 3 bosses in NH were bugged. Trilliax was literally unbeatable for 1 or 2 days. Elisande had invisible insta death discs and Skorp was all out of whack.

Upper Kara was bugged. Cathedral was incredibly overtuned (and still is) to the point where the 2nd best guild in the world (Serenity) could NOT beat the last boss on a PLUS TEN mythic (or if they did, it took them like 2+ hours of trying, I don't know since I lost interest and stopped watching before they downed him).

Shit loads of bugs in Broken Isle.

ilvl scaling broken which had people unequipping gear to make the fights easier.

Some artifact weapon empowering quests were bugged (dunno if they still are)


And those are just the ones from the top of my head.

[Onikaroshi]

Don't forget 3 bosses in NH were bugged. Trilliax was literally unbeatable for 1 or 2 days. Elisande had invisible insta death discs and Skorp was all out of whack.

Upper Kara was bugged. Cathedral was incredibly overtuned (and still is) to the point where the 2nd best guild in the world (Serenity) could NOT beat the last boss on a PLUS TEN mythic (or if they did, it took them like 2+ hours of trying, I don't know since I lost interest and stopped watching before they downed him).

Shit loads of bugs in Broken Isle.

ilvl scaling broken which had people unequipping gear to make the fights easier.

Some artifact weapon empowering quests were bugged (dunno if they still are)


And those are just the ones from the top of my head.

We had Zero issues with Trill and Skorp on tues (Heroic), elisande has since been fixed (this means it may not have come up on ptr and even if it was in it didn't necessarily crop up during tests, not everyone had extreme issues with elisande)

Upper kara was fine for me on tues, what bugs? I haven't even heard of any personally

Cathedral is probably tuned fine seeing as +10 is the old +15 and its brand new, serenity players like to whine. Though there was the invisible orb bug.

Haven't seen a bug on the broken isles, ilvl scaling was in ptr but no one even noticed (i didn't even notice on tues, it was so minimal at 905), and i can't speak for artifact quests as I only did DH, DK and Pally so far.

It's no more bugs than any other patch or any other game, stop blowing it out of proportion

[ComputerNerd]

If you even remotely followed their earning calls, you'd seen how....inane this claim is? They are and have build up other franchises to make money and every year activity and income is rising even with WoW dropping subs.

Oh yeah..and doomsaying thread is doomsaying thread and nothing new, patch after patch, year after year. Even when they released numbers and they were at a 12 million sub high - the people who wanted to shit on the franchise just went "12 million subs only means it is popular. Mc Donald's is popular and the burgers are crap"

And while we are at it....anecdotal evidence is anecdotal evidence. I am constantly surrounded by people, always find groups in LFR, even at midnight. But guess that is not an indication of popularity then, only of CRZ

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Nono...please, no. It instantly tells me what to expect from a given post. If you cannot get your basic grammar right, the rest of your post is likely to be random ravings and inane babble. Feelings instead of facts. Nebulous.

I give people the benefit of the doubt with grammar and spelling, not least because some of them may not be native speakers.
I let an argument dictate my opinion, not judging the book by its cover.

[Saverem]

We had Zero issues with Trill and Skorp on tues (Heroic), elisande has since been fixed (this means it may not have come up on ptr and even if it was in it didn't necessarily crop up during tests, not everyone had extreme issues with elisande)

Upper kara was fine for me on tues, what bugs? I haven't even heard of any personally

Cathedral is probably tuned fine seeing as +10 is the old +15 and its brand new, serenity players like to whine. Though there was the invisible orb bug.

Haven't seen a bug on the broken isles, ilvl scaling was in ptr but no one even noticed (i didn't even notice on tues, it was so minimal at 905), and i can't speak for artifact quests as I only did DH, DK and Pally so far.

It's no more bugs than any other patch or any other game, stop blowing it out of proportion

Nice alt facts there. But reality doesn't bend to your views. Trilliax was broken. His beam hit everyone in the raid regardless of whether you stood in it or not. My guild experienced this and so did many others. We did not experience the Elisande bug but many did. Just because you didn't encounter it doesn't mean it didn't exist, bud.

Also, did you not hear me mention 2nd best guild in world not being able to beat a +10? They were geared enough to easily 3 chest +15s in their sleep prior to 7.2 and they couldn't beat Cathedral in +10... Yeah. No. It's brokenly overtuned.

ilvl scaling doesn't matter if most people noticed or not, the FACT is that it existed and people did get benefit from unequipping gear to bring their their ilvl. Unnoticable or not doesn't mean the problem didn't exist.

Again, this is not even counting the tons of class bug like CB not hitting, DHs crashing the game when they used Fel Rush, etc.


Can't think of a buggier patch in recent history.

[Onikaroshi]

Nice alt facts there. But reality doesn't bend to your views. Trilliax was broken. His beam hit everyone in the raid regardless of whether you stood in it or not. My guild experienced this and so did many others. We did not experience the Elisande bug but many did. Just because you didn't encounter it doesn't mean it didn't exist, bud.

Also, did you not hear me mention 2nd best guild in world not being able to beat a +10? They were geared enough to easily 3 chest +15s in their sleep prior to 7.2 and they couldn't beat Cathedral in +10... Yeah. No. It's brokenly overtuned.

ilvl scaling doesn't matter if most people noticed or not, the FACT is that it existed and people did get benefit from unequipping gear to bring their their ilvl. Unnoticable or not doesn't mean the problem didn't exist.

Again, this is not even counting the tons of class bug like CB not hitting, DHs crashing the game when they used Fel Rush, etc.


Can't think of a buggier patch in recent history.

I'm just saying the bugs may not have existed in PTR, you can't fix something until it is proven to be broken.

And good on the tuning for Cathedral, the newest dungeon should be harder >.>

Btw, DH fel rush crash has been in since legion launch, it's gotten better but it still happens on occasion, its not related to the patch.