No new expansion, instead WoW 2

[Tiwack]

Don't have to make remake wow when they could just go back to vanilla design philosophy for an expansion... as they claim to have done with legion smh.

I'd welcome an engine that was better optimized to utilize the hardware/software we have today tho

[Deleted]

Um, no. That would be your mental gymnastics that you're somehow projecting onto me...

You can find out the information for each brand just fine from said quarterly reports and earnings calls, spanning back to 2009 if memory serves me right.

Again, WoD made 800k USD in a year, the year that was the widely acknowledged lowest point of this game since Classic both from sub numbers and the content delivered. Legion so far has been more profitable, well-received and critically acclaimed.

stop defending a broken and dying game.
i know you have emotions for wow.
but really.
donald trump says get over it.
stop being liberal and accept hard reality

[Tic Tacs]

You and I have no idea what the subscribtion numbers look like now. Don't act like you're the special snowflake with the insider knowledge.

Q3 '15 they had 5 million subs, you can read their financial report yourself. Keep in mind the number is for worldwide, US is probably somewhere around 1 million. After '15 Activision Blizzard didn't report sub numbers and I can see why... most likely on decline otherwise they would report it, good for business. As an active player I can see way more low pop realms in realm list since then, that explains too.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Don't have to make remake wow when they could just go back to vanilla design philosophy for an expansion... as they claim to have done with legion smh.

I'd welcome an engine that was better optimized to utilize the hardware/software we have today tho

Legion design philosophy and content delivered >>>>>>>>> Classic though. There's a reason for why they wanted to get back to MoP values in terms of content delivered after WoD, not Classic... Hopefully, the future will see more of quantity and overall quality similar to Legion, with tweaks to the worst offending issues.

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Q3 '15 they had 5 million subs, you can read their financial report yourself. Keep in mind the number is for worldwide, US is probably somewhere around 1 million. After '15 Activision Blizzard didn't report sub numbers and I can see why... most likely on decline otherwise they would report it, good for business. As an active player I can see way more low pop realms in realm list since then, that explains too.

We're in 2017 now, and the game had an expansion release in 2016 and is no longer in WoD, an expansion that killed the "worst expansion discussion" forever. Profits are up, MAU are growing by the quarter. There were always anecdotal evidence for "this game is dying/struggling", even during WOTLK. "I see dead servers!" is memeworthy by now.

Seriously...

[JustRob]

Q3 '15 they had 5 million subs, you can read their financial report yourself. Keep in mind the number is for worldwide, US is probably somewhere around 1 million. After '15 Activision Blizzard didn't report sub numbers and I can see why... most likely on decline otherwise they would report it, good for business. As an active player I can see way more low pop realms in realm list since then, that explains too.

Thanks for proving my point

[Deleted]

You wouldn't love a WoW reset, because none of these conditions are going to apply if a WoW 2 is ever made

Maybe, but I can hope

I think if it would use same model as current WoW, it wouldn't make any sense to make it. Reset must do something different to be successful. Returning to WoW RPG roots, but using modern tech might return old players, which there are millions of.

[Tic Tacs]

Assassin's Creed 2, as a comparison point, cost $24 million dollars to make and sold about 9 million copies. That's a total production value of around $540 million dollars.

WoW makes that in a year, and it certainly doesn't have to create a whole new game with new systems, a new engine, and an all new world as detailed as that of an Assassin's Creed game every year.

For the sake of argument, though, let's say that WoW costs $60 million per year to maintain, advertise, and provide new content. That's about $120 million per development cycle (4 times the budget of that Assassin's Creed game). Over 2 years, the production time, if it's only got 2 million subscribers it's making a net profit of $600 million over and above the $120 million they spent to maintain it and develop the next expansion.

Yes, I'm not saying the game is not profitable just merely pointing out that it is not a cash cow as it used to be and on a constant decline due to various reasons. Quality of the expansion packs doesn't attract new players but it keeps old players somewhat satisfied, hence doesn't makes game more profitable. Marketing among other things is more important if you want higher sub base. They will make WoW 2.0 some day in the future, I can tell you right now.

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Thanks for proving my point

I just gave you the numbers. Sorry, what is your point?

[Maudib]

The big news this Blizzcon is not WoW 2, but WoW on PS4 and XBox.

Yep.

[ComputerNerd]

People love to ignore this. It's why the "subs are dropping because wow is old" argument never holds any water. The game succeeds or fails based on the quality of the current expansion, which is in essence a sequal to the previous one.

Actually it holds more water than you want to believe.
it is a mixture of many things, and you dismissing one you don't like doesn't make it untrue.
Look at the complaints of difficulty which come from experienced players, demanding that difficulty is upped generally without regard of those who don't have the same, that experience.
The longer you play, the more trivial a given difficulty will be.
There can't be a continued raising of that bar which would permanently exclude anyone but a minority, and a dwindling one at that.

Don't have to make remake wow when they could just go back to vanilla design philosophy for an expansion... as they claim to have done with legion smh.

I'd welcome an engine that was better optimized to utilize the hardware/software we have today tho

Yes, in an increasingly multi-threaded trend wow is rather backward now in being highly single-threaded.
Performance plays a big part in determining the experience, and the showcase content - large group content is very hostile to all but higher specced PC's.

[Coffeh]

There is a 0.0% chance that WoW 2 will ever exist. No one with a drop of common sense thinks Blizzard would ever develop another mmo again. It's not going to happen. They make simple, easy and cheap to design games now. They will NEVER EVER EVER make another mmo. They require way too much time and too much resources without enough payoff. Why the hell would they spend 4-5 years, employing hundreds and hundreds of people to make an mmo, when they could spend a small percentage of that time and money to make a game like Overwatch that makes them even more money? Hell, they can't even be bothered to release legacy servers which a couple half-assed third party companies have managed to do.

Common sense. Blizzard isn't going to make another mmo. Accept it.

[oplawlz]

Actually it holds more water than you want to believe.
it is a mixture of many things, and you dismissing one you don't like doesn't make it untrue.
Look at the complaints of difficulty which come from experienced players, demanding that difficulty is upped generally without regard of those who don't have the same, that experience.
The longer you play, the more trivial a given difficulty will be.
There can't be a continued raising of that bar which would permanently exclude anyone but a minority, and a dwindling one at that.

Perhaps I wasn't clear - the argument I take issue with is wow losing popularity primarily due to its age. As to people demanding higher difficulty, I'm not sure which aspect you're referring to. The pruning of abilities was a horrible game design decision done to make Blizzards job easier, it had nothing to do with new players. No noob was running around in wailing caverns thinking "oh god, should I cast Eye of the Beast?"
As for content itself, for the vast majority of players mythic+or the heroic raiding is plenty challenging. I reject the notion that the age of the game has anything to do with difficulty requirements from elitists. The same small % of people show up in nearly every new game saying the same things.

[Steampunkette]

Yes, I'm not saying the game is not profitable just merely pointing out that it is not a cash cow as it used to be and on a constant decline due to various reasons. Quality of the expansion packs doesn't attract new players but it keeps old players somewhat satisfied, hence doesn't makes game more profitable. Marketing among other things is more important if you want higher sub base. They will make WoW 2.0 some day in the future, I can tell you right now.

Tic Tacs... It's not just profitable. Assassin's Creed 2 was profitable.

WoW is INSANELY RIDICULOUSLY CONSISTENTLY PROFITABLE year over year for 13 years.

On a good year it pulls down over a Billion Dollars in profits. On a bad year it only pulls in a few hundred million. I don't think you grasp the scope of how incredible that is, particularly in the current market for MMORPGs. The next biggest "Big Budget" MMO currently going is Final Fantasy 14 with somewhere around 9 million sales of Stormblood in September.

WoW2 would need to somehow maintain the momentum for allllll of the current playerbase to either jump ship or stay put with the knowledge that Legion is the end of the game with no more expansions in the future, AND steal players from all kinds of other MMOs that have established their presence.

It's not going to happen 'til WoW's sub numbers drop below 350,000. Which is still probably another 4-6 years off. And when/if it happens, what will the MMO market look like at that point? Who can, really, say?

[MoanaLisa]

As an active player I can see way more low pop realms in realm list since then, that explains too.

As an active and informed player you no doubt remember the maintenance day when they greatly increased realm population caps prior to Legion launch. An event which pushed nearly all realms down the pole with respect to the full-medium-low scale. If you don't remember that perhaps you should question how well informed you are.

And no, no one at all outside of Blizzard has any idea whatsoever what subscription numbers are. Not you, not me, not anyone that's posting here.

[ComputerNerd]

Perhaps I wasn't clear - the argument I take issue with is wow losing popularity primarily due to its age. As to people demanding higher difficulty, I'm not sure which aspect you're referring to. The pruning of abilities was a horrible game design decision done to make Blizzards job easier, it had nothing to do with new players. No noob was running around in wailing caverns thinking "oh god, should I cast Eye of the Beast?"
As for content itself, for the vast majority of players mythic+or the heroic raiding is plenty challenging. I reject the notion that the age of the game has anything to do with difficulty requirements from elitists. The same small % of people show up in nearly every new game saying the same things.

You argue pruning abilities is a bad thing, but I would argue the opposite for what I just said.
The larger number, or even an increase each time only caters to a small minority who experienced that in a more gradual progression.

It has more to do with new players than you like to think.
How you experienced that progression to that point is entirely different to how they would.

[Deleted]

I see the WoW2 threads pop up on occasion, but I have yet to encounter an explanation why this would be needed. What can Blizz do with WoW2 that they cannot do with expansions?

[MoanaLisa]

I see the WoW2 threads pop up on occasion, but I have yet to encounter an explanation why this would be needed. What can Blizz do with WoW2 that they cannot do with expansions?

Actually nothing. In fact, even though it didn't end well and was unpopular, Warlords of Draenor could easily be considered a "WoW II". Different timeline, different world, all of that.

For the most part, everyone that thinks a WoW II is imminent is indulging in fantasy because nearly everyone that goes on about this (and we get at least 3-5 threads a month about it) thinks that if only Blizzard would make a WoW II they would make the MMO that they want instead of the MMO that we have.

[Deleted]

You and I have no idea what the subscribtion numbers look like now. Don't act like you're the special snowflake with the insider knowledge.

Well.. The fact that they reported exact sub numbers for what..10 years and then stopped during wows all time low sub numbers should give you an indication of how bad it is.
If they magically got back to old sub numbers rest assured they would make a PR stunt of it. But...they haven't ?

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Actually nothing.

Actually a new game engine that could well...not be total shit and be outdated even though updated ?
We could say, avoid hardcoded stuff that cant be changed ?

Saying "actually nothing" is a bit weird if you ask me :P

[JustRob]

Well.. The fact that they reported exact sub numbers for what..10 years and then stopped during wows all time low sub numbers should give you an indication of how bad it is.
If they magically got back to old sub numbers rest assured they would make a PR stunt of it. But...they haven't ?

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Actually a new game engine that could well...not be total shit and be outdated even though updated ?
We could say, avoid hardcoded stuff that cant be changed ?

Saying "actually nothing" is a bit weird if you ask me :P

You assume they stopped reporting sub numbers because it's bad. If that were true, they wouldn't have reported WoD's low sub numbers to begin with. You know what they say about assuming? It makes an ass out of you and me.

What I do know is that Dalaran is always bustling with people, Argus is crawling with people, and any groups made in the group finder on Argus get filled up in a matter of seconds. I see plenty of people playing.

[MoanaLisa]

Actually a new game engine that could well...not be total shit and be outdated even though updated ?

If they were to develop a new game engine why wouldn't they develop it from the start so that the old game would work in it? And if you imagine that the graphics are "total shit" why would you even think that they would change them?

[Queen of Hamsters]

Well.. The fact that they reported exact sub numbers for what..10 years and then stopped during wows all time low sub numbers should give you an indication of how bad it is.
If they magically got back to old sub numbers rest assured they would make a PR stunt of it. But...they haven't ?
P

If this petty reasoning held true, why didn't they allow the 10 million subs "leak" remain to fester and bring good rep to the game? Why did they not withold low sub numbers whilst only reporting the highs?

Sorry, they moved over to a new way of gauging success which has become the norm in the industry. They're sticking with that decision. You people will stick to the "but if teh gaem is doing well, whai no sub numbers since WoD??"-fallacy for years to come, denying the actual, tangible ways in which the game is now measured.

Meanwhile: The game is hella busy. It's nowhere near the ghost town it was in cities at the end of WoD. The world is buzzing with players, cities are crammed during peak hours, my 3 servers have queues on them regularly despite the increased server tech. The same servers that showed "low" during WOTLK, still show "Low"... As expected.