Why WoW is not dying...

[Deleted]

Been playing since '05. In Vanilla people said WoW was dying because X class was OP, because fast mounts broke the open world, and with Nerfs it gave out loot too easily that people didn't deserve. People felt the game wasn't well balanced in PvP or PvE.

In BC people said the game was dying because the economy was so highly inflated that anyone could buy their way to t6. With Heroic Dungeons being released, the start of welfare gear began, meaning people from Vanilla who didn't have the time to gear up could now raid, and was killing the game. People felt flying was killing the game because it destroyed immersion. People felt PvP was very imbalanced in Arena, but also PvPing was the best way to gear up your character for PvE, so PvP wasn't taken seriously. People felt daily questing was mandatory to progress and destroyed what the world was. People felt raiding in general was so accessible (4% of WoW players actually raided Sunwell Plateau), catering to the casual crowd would be the downfall of WoW.

People felt WotLK was the WoW killer because it made raiding much more accessible, Heroic Dungeons were much more common with no lock out. Getting flying was easier, and with Heirlooms, leveling to 80 was much easier. Class balance was good at times, so doing things like Raiding or Arena was very active (unless you were a ret paladin). But began the content droughts because continent most players were involved in became too easy and less of a grind, so players began to become bored. Dalaran boredom trains were very common, leveling alts you would never touch again was common because nothing to do. And eventually Looking for Dungeon released, streamlining dungeon grinds and destroying server community.

Keep in mind while all these complaints and end-of-day sayers were blasting the forums, WoW continued to grow...

Cata, MoP, WoD, Legion, they also had their issues, but the game kept improving.
My point is people look their the past with rose-filtered glasses, with the past looking rosier than what people actually thought at the time. Classic servers prove this, because despite the massive complaints during WoW's first iteration, people want it back despite WoW's improvements.

Look at MoP, a very successful WoW expansion, definitely top 3. When the expansion was announced the forums were aflame, people calling for WoW's death, and ended up being a great experience.

To everyone complaining about BfA being dull in story, content that is too grindy, taking away our content, not being able to go places we once wanted to, or other hard criticisms about an expansion we frankly know little about, remember that we've heard it all before. Yet, WoW keeps getting better. Mistakes have been made, but the newest expansion always adds something better or new to the game that wasn't there before, always moving forward.

WoW is still going strong and has a great base who will stay with it, not because it is WoW, but because it is great. I am excited for BfA and nay-sayers should look at how those great experiences you had in WoW were originally viewed before it was played. People have been calling for the death of WoW since '04, yet the game keeps living.

salty over legacy servers much? deal with it. goodbye.

[Luckx]

WOW started dying since Cata/MOP for real.

During Vanilla/TBC/WOTLK subscriber numbers were growing and was about 11-12mills during late TBC and WOTLK, and during MOP they fell to 7.4mills.



World population in 2008: about 6,789,771,253

World population in 2017: about 7,550,262,101

[Deleted]

Been playing since '05. In Vanilla people said WoW was dying because X class was OP, because fast mounts broke the open world, and with Nerfs it gave out loot too easily that people didn't deserve. People felt the game wasn't well balanced in PvP or PvE.

In BC people said the game was dying because the economy was so highly inflated that anyone could buy their way to t6. With Heroic Dungeons being released, the start of welfare gear began, meaning people from Vanilla who didn't have the time to gear up could now raid, and was killing the game. People felt flying was killing the game because it destroyed immersion. People felt PvP was very imbalanced in Arena, but also PvPing was the best way to gear up your character for PvE, so PvP wasn't taken seriously. People felt daily questing was mandatory to progress and destroyed what the world was. People felt raiding in general was so accessible (4% of WoW players actually raided Sunwell Plateau), catering to the casual crowd would be the downfall of WoW.

People felt WotLK was the WoW killer because it made raiding much more accessible, Heroic Dungeons were much more common with no lock out. Getting flying was easier, and with Heirlooms, leveling to 80 was much easier. Class balance was good at times, so doing things like Raiding or Arena was very active (unless you were a ret paladin). But began the content droughts because continent most players were involved in became too easy and less of a grind, so players began to become bored. Dalaran boredom trains were very common, leveling alts you would never touch again was common because nothing to do. And eventually Looking for Dungeon released, streamlining dungeon grinds and destroying server community.

Keep in mind while all these complaints and end-of-day sayers were blasting the forums, WoW continued to grow...

Cata, MoP, WoD, Legion, they also had their issues, but the game kept improving.
My point is people look their the past with rose-filtered glasses, with the past looking rosier than what people actually thought at the time. Classic servers prove this, because despite the massive complaints during WoW's first iteration, people want it back despite WoW's improvements.

Look at MoP, a very successful WoW expansion, definitely top 3. When the expansion was announced the forums were aflame, people calling for WoW's death, and ended up being a great experience.

To everyone complaining about BfA being dull in story, content that is too grindy, taking away our content, not being able to go places we once wanted to, or other hard criticisms about an expansion we frankly know little about, remember that we've heard it all before. Yet, WoW keeps getting better. Mistakes have been made, but the newest expansion always adds something better or new to the game that wasn't there before, always moving forward.

WoW is still going strong and has a great base who will stay with it, not because it is WoW, but because it is great. I am excited for BfA and nay-sayers should look at how those great experiences you had in WoW were originally viewed before it was played. People have been calling for the death of WoW since '04, yet the game keeps living.

salty over legacy servers much? deal with it. i've played wow since the day of release, and i couldnt be happyer that they have decided to release legacy servers. if you dont like it, goodbye. the classic server announcment literally shit on yet another pathetic expansion announcment i'm afraid. literally no one will be playing on retail servers because vanilla wow is that good. and literally every single person who said they hated vanilla and legacy is because they never played them, they never played them in the glory days will play on them or they are just salty over retail wow been taken over by the true champion of mmo's, vanilla world of warcraft.

[ls-]

I've played the game since vanilla as well, and I don't remember so much complaining as u are saying.......when u come from 20 million people to being barely able to keep 7m.....u cant say something is stronger.........this is not about personal opinion,but about facts.

I've been playing since Vanilla and according to enough people it's a stillborn child of Blizz when WoW was released.

There's so much more complaining and whining than what's mentioned in OP. OP is just highlights of few things people bitched about.

I've actually play legacy servers and is not about rose filters in memory, cause u can go right now into any legacy server and see the difference for yourself......
its a completely different game

And because you're saying the current PS are accurate representation of Vanilla WoW it's safe to assume that you either don't remember the game back then or didn't actually play when it's current (pre-TBC era).

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WOW started dying since Cata/MOP for real.

During Vanilla/TBC/WOTLK subscriber numbers were growing and was about 11-12mills during late TBC and WOTLK, and during MOP they fell to 7.4mills.



World population in 2008: about 6,789,771,253

World population in 2017: about 7,550,262,101

I'd say WoW started dying in WotLK, the only reason there's no now typical sub dip by the end of WotLK is its late release in China.

If Chinese government didn't pull the plug on WotLK when it's originally released, WotLK would peak at 12kk much earlier, but then we'd see sub dip.

[Deleted]

Seems to me people decide the game is dying when they themselves feel a need to stop playing. It's a coping mechanism.

Yeah, the way our brains are designed we tend to interpret anecdotal evidence as a larger theme. We can only keep track of around 200 meaningful social relationships in our heads and everything beyond this "sphere" starts to diminish in importance.

So when I start feeling like I'm done with the game, and I see anecdotal evidence of the same within my social sphere, my brain automatically leaps to a conclusion that this is "Very Significant Event" and "I ought to alert the other primates in my vicinity about this"!

This works really well, then you've just climbed down from a tree and the savannah is full of lions that want to eat you, but doesn't work quite as well in our new digital and virtual existence on the Internet.

Hence threads like this.

[Riistov]

I've played the game since vanilla as well, and I don't remember so much complaining as u are saying.......when u come from 20 million people to being barely able to keep 7m.....u cant say something is stronger.........this is not about personal opinion,but about facts.
I've actually play legacy servers and is not about rose filters in memory, cause u can go right now into any legacy server and see the difference for yourself......
its a completely different game

People complained in Vanilla almost constantly, about nearly everything. Do you remember how toxic the forums were back then? It was far less moderated and far more negative than it was today.

Not sure where the 20 million figure is coming from. The highest sub number they ever announced was 12 million back in Wrath/Cata.

There are a lot of reasons for population fluctuation from the fact there is FAR more competition today to the fact that people don't have the same mindset they did about games back in 2004 (far more tourism nowadays). Quality and quantity of content certainly has some effect, but I don't think the "changes" to the game had nearly the impact you suggest.

[Emerald Archer]

WOW started dying since Cata/MOP for real.

During Vanilla/TBC/WOTLK subscriber numbers were growing and was about 11-12mills during late TBC and WOTLK, and during MOP they fell to 7.4mills.



World population in 2008: about 6,789,771,253

World population in 2017: about 7,550,262,101

Dying does not mean dead, everything in decline is dying, things that are great can be dying, that delicious cake you buy from the store, any person ever, your shiny new TV, it's all dying. That doesn't mean it's bad.

Wow is "dying" in the sense of the word, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, it could take 50 years before wow "dies"

This game has been huge for a long time, it was never going to stay that big forever, peaks like that happen, then the game falls off. Happens with every single game. It might have another peak like that in 10 years, that might last a year, then maybe it goes back to what it is now.

Dying does not = bad.

[haxartus]

This expansion looks so bad that they killed any desire I had for playing the game. Seriously, I haven't logged in the game since the announcement and I don't plan on playing it.

This is the first time this happens. I was excited for WoD, Pandaria, etc. Everything. This announcement has been the worst in WoW's history.

[Deleted]

There is NO WAY they can make this story fly.

I fully agree with your full post even if I quote only one part.

To me WOW is died, not as a commercial product, I'm sure it will keep on with lots of fans and subs. But World of warcraft as the initial game concept is died.
Just compare the first cinematic of wow to the last. The last is technically amazing but you can not say that they are presenting the same game. Wow became Islands of Warcrafts, the concept of world being not compliant with xpack business model. As a player I started Wow because of the world and the story it offers to explore. The strongest you were getting the more you were able to explore. Now the max level is just you can grab the new 2 years game that genius game lead designers have found to sell a new xpack, with the killer features that will last two years at best.

I will go further and say that all the blizzard catalog is going that way, less and less coherent stories, just a shiny funny lore mess as overwatch, heroes of the storm, hearthstone. Even starcraft 2 ending was a shame from a story point of view...

Maybe this is the key to business success with current gamers?

[Doffen]

salty over legacy servers much? deal with it. i've played wow since the day of release, and i couldnt be happyer that they have decided to release legacy servers. if you dont like it, goodbye. the classic server announcment literally shit on yet another pathetic expansion announcment i'm afraid. literally no one will be playing on retail servers because vanilla wow is that good. and literally every single person who said they hated vanilla and legacy is because they never played them, they never played them in the glory days will play on them or they are just salty over retail wow been taken over by the true champion of mmo's, vanilla world of warcraft.

Thats hilarious Give us more!!

[Riistov]

salty over legacy servers much? deal with it. i've played wow since the day of release, and i couldnt be happyer that they have decided to release legacy servers. if you dont like it, goodbye. the classic server announcment literally shit on yet another pathetic expansion announcment i'm afraid. literally no one will be playing on retail servers because vanilla wow is that good. and literally every single person who said they hated vanilla and legacy is because they never played them, they never played them in the glory days will play on them or they are just salty over retail wow been taken over by the true champion of mmo's, vanilla world of warcraft.

Both are going to do well, not sure why you feel the need to turn this into a zero-sum game.

I honestly don't see either announcement outpacing the other one. They're both huge news, they're both great news, and the vast majority of us are excited for both announcements.

[zknm7]

You make a good point, but the clickbait title is annoying. Let your argument stand on it's own merits, don't rely on a clickbait title to get ppl to view and comment. Is it effective? Sure... but it kind of makes you seem like an attention-grubbing asshole.

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WOW started dying since Cata/MOP for real.

During Vanilla/TBC/WOTLK subscriber numbers were growing and was about 11-12mills during late TBC and WOTLK, and during MOP they fell to 7.4mills.



World population in 2008: about 6,789,771,253

World population in 2017: about 7,550,262,101

So it's pretty much leveled off, and still boasts far more players than any other MMO by far. You say WoW is "dying" but the numbers don't support that... it's got an incredible player and fanbase... and that's not even taking into account the fact that it's a 13-14 year old game... If your idea of "dying" is "it doesn't have the players that it did at its peak" then yeah.... uh... I guess it's "dying".... but the reality here is that you're a fucking idiot, and you don't know how to differentiate between a game that is "dying" or "dead" and one that is basically sustaining its playerbase, more or less.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Dead game still warrants a write-up in Rolling Stone:
'Battle of Azeroth' Is Next 'World of Warcraft' Expansion

[zknm7]

salty over legacy servers much? deal with it. goodbye.

Salty. Salty. Salty. Ffs sake, using trendy terms overly much? How about pissed, angry, unhappy, less than happy, dislike..... SALTY!!! I'M HAV0KK, AND YEW ALL SALTY!!! I LIKE TO LICK SALTY CHEESE BALLS!!! SALTY, SALTY, SALTY, BUT NOT PEPPERY!!! Sprinkle salt erywhure, cause it's all SALTY!!! I'm the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans COMBINED!!! SALTY!!!! Not PISSED, not ANGRY, not UNHAPPY, like an ocean, like a pretzel, like a BIG, SWEATY BALLSACK, I'm SALTY!!!

[Djem]

Stupid click bait title

[sam86]

I don't remember ppl claiming death of wow in vanilla or even tbc, and i was (back then) still following official forums even if blizz moderation there is the worst i ever saw (massive ban for 'why we kill illidan' thread is literally the reason i never typed on official forums again, and still until now i love to say fuck you blizzard)
the 'death' of wow claims started with the more casual wrath, and if u think wow now is the same as it was during its peak in wrath then u are ignoring reality
wow is 'dead' as it is no longer the biggest game in the market it used to be, even hearthstone has bigger market now, but wow is of course nowhere near actual death of a game like Paladins for example, who were born dead to begind with

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-snip-

Sir I salute u for amazing post, u described it wonderfully

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I'd say WoW started dying in WotLK, the only reason there's no now typical sub dip by the end of WotLK is its late release in China.

If Chinese government didn't pull the plug on WotLK when it's originally released, WotLK would peak at 12kk much earlier, but then we'd see sub dip.

China were - during tbc era - around 5 million players alone, if they were playing in wrath with rest of world, wow would been 17k sub not just 12

[ls-]

China were - during tbc era - around 5 million players alone, if they were playing in wrath with rest of world, wow would been 17k sub not just 12

Man, entire region doesn't quit the game during content drought, you know... And you also prob remember how Blizz used to count Chinese subs: paid for 1 minute of game time, eh? That's a sub!

That's what I'm saying China added few mil players back to the game, that's why we didn't see sub dip. While people were quitting due to infamous ICC drought in other regions, Chinese players who finally got their hands on WotLK boosted sub numbers, WotLK actually peaked during its last few months.

[Morssoe]

It is common misconception to think players saying "wow is dead" they mean it like it is a fact, while the truth is that it is just their opinion.

[Tucci]

At this point I gotta believe the people who still claim WoW is dying/will die/is dead must feel like they're working away at Mount Everest with a hammer and chisel. Like, how many expansions have to come and go before you get tired of hearing yourself say it? XD

People have to understand that the game doesn't need the most players it's ever had in it's history for Blizzard to produce top quality content.

That new cinematic was probably the best one I've seen. Just unreal. Legion completely blew me away when I first played it. As far as the world goes (story, questing, exploration, content density, etc.) it was the best expansion they've ever made and it's not even fucking close. I didn't get to finish it because I've barely played all year so I can't speak on the 2nd half of it but, fuck...they did an INCREDIBLE job with Legion. It totally caught me off guard. All the secrets and storylines/progression added so much to it. Gave it so much life that previous expansions lacked.

I hope the next one can follow in Legion's footsteps. The split zones are an interesting concept. I like the focus back on Alliance vs. Horde, especially now after seeing what they did in Legion with all the voice acting, cutscenes and tech they added. I think it could be really epic.

[MoanaLisa]

Stupid click bait title

I changed the thread title to something much less problematical.