Surprised that so few people are raiding

[tawoko]

I've raided, we just couldn't down the boss. It's still at that point where you need an extremely solid 10 man even to progress in normal, because we don't out gear the shit out of it yet. Give it time young one, you're chomping the bit pretty early on this analysis.

[Deleted]

There are way more than 2.7 million that bought MoP. 2.7 million bought the retail copy another 2 - 5 million bought it digital.

[tibben]

The number of guilds getting kills in MV is still increasing every day. Considering there probably won't be another tier until sometime in the Spring I don't see why you would be surprised about the low number of raiders. DS was out for nearly a year. MV has been out for less than 2 months and people still had to level, and do heroic dungeons, and do rep grinds, and many are probably doing LFR now so they have a few epics before they start normal modes.

[dryankem]

Yeah I don't want to commit to raiding myself because of the time commitment, so LFR has been awesome for me. If I never have to log into vent again, great.

However of my tiny guild of maybe 12 players, 4 of us have even reached 90 and I believe I'm the only one to have run heroic dungeons (took my sweet time leveling and only started gearing the last week or so but should hit LFR soon and then it's onto another toon). However I believe there are more people like my guild mates than there are players like myself (and better yet players that are already raiding or raid ready).

[Orange Joe]

I disagree. I play games that I find fun and enjoy. Not as a time sink when I'm bored. I play WoW because I like the game and enjoy playing it.

If you only play games as a time sink, then you are doing it wrong.

I play games for something fun to do when I have nothing better to do. This is exactly what a time sink is.

[Galaddriel]

Incidentally, I imagine somewhere in this thread, its been pointed out how wrong the OP's numbers are. 2.7 million people is far less than the number that actually bought the game.

That was the number released by Blizzard.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company...tml?id=7473409

[Orange Joe]

That was the number released by Blizzard.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company...tml?id=7473409

that was FIRST WEEK sales. You think no one else bought it after the first week?

---------- Post added 2012-11-01 at 12:05 PM ----------

There are way more than 2.7 million that bought MoP. 2.7 million bought the retail copy another 2 - 5 million bought it digital.

The only thing we know is 2.7 bought the game in the first week. We don't know if this was digital, box or both. I'm sure more have bought the game since then but no more numbers hvae been released.

[yjmark]

I play games for something fun to do when I have nothing better to do. This is exactly what a time sink is.

I guess that depends on your definition of a "time sink".

From my perspective, a time sink = something you do which is not fun, but just takes up a lot of time. aka - a time killer with little/no benefit.

If it is fun, I don't really consider it a time sink. /shrug.

[Galaddriel]

that was FIRST WEEK sales. You think no one else bought it after the first week?

---------- Post added 2012-11-01 at 12:05 PM ----------



The only thing we know is 2.7 bought the game in the first week. We don't know if this was digital, box or both. I'm sure more have bought the game since then but no more numbers hvae been released.

I wasn't saying no one has bought it since the first week, just pointing out that the person that said I was not including digital sales that this was the number that was released by Blizzard - I'm sure they counted every digital sale they could.

---------- Post added 2012-11-01 at 09:13 AM ----------

People on my server are raiding just as much if not even more than during DS. Its not as much as it was in the beginning of Cata but I think thats because of LFR and the huge amoung of dailies you have to do....

Curious what realm you raid on. Just looking at random realms they all seem to have far fewer guilds this season compared to last season. Even the biggest busiest realms known for raiding.

Illidan 190 vs 477
Ravenholdt 21 vs 67
Area 52 168 vs 422
Frostmourne 160 vs 386
Malganis 148 vs 302
Blackrock 128 vs 270
Kil'jaeden 144 vs 330
Ner'zhul 74 vs167
Gurubashi 8 vs 58

[dryankem]

I wasn't saying no one has bought it since the first week, just pointing out that the person that said I was not including digital sales that this was the number that was released by Blizzard - I'm sure they counted every digital sale they could.

---------- Post added 2012-11-01 at 09:13 AM ----------



Curious what realm you raid on. Just looking at random realms they all seem to have far fewer guilds this season compared to last season. Even the biggest busiest realms known for raiding.

Illidan 190 vs 477
Ravenholdt 21 vs 67
Area 52 168 vs 422
Frostmourne 160 vs 386
Malganis 148 vs 302
Blackrock 128 vs 270
Kil'jaeden 144 vs 330
Ner'zhul 74 vs167
Gurubashi 8 vs 58

Just curious of those numbers, was that at the same point in time for both expansions? Also does that include LFR? I'm sure there are a ton of people that would just rather do the LFR and not the hassle of actually raiding, so there probably was a decent drop from that.

[Firecrest]

The hardcores have all left for other games. Why is this confusing to you people? Blizzard has chosen to cater to the casual because it made sound business sense to give the most attention to the largest demographic. It was (probably) the right thing for them to do. Why is it that the ramifications of that decision are so surprising to all of you? They knew what they were doing - I guarantee they're not surprised. So why are you?

Expect the term "end game content" in the future to be less and less about "killing bosses" and be more and more about "things my characters can do". Expect content to get easier and easier as the bar drops lower and lower due to the exodus of skilled and committed players. This is what you asked for. A game that's a hobby and not a lifestyle. Production quality will go up, challenge will go down and the lifespan of a dying game will be extended for awhile longer.

I've come to realize that Blizzard had to do what they did. It's shitty that people like me got left out in the cold, but it was the only way that the game could survive. They'd have no chance of making it to Titan if they'd continued to put so much resources into making their top players happy.

[Mukki]

The hardcores have all left for other games. Why is this confusing to you people? Blizzard has chosen to cater to the casual because it made sound business sense to give the most attention to the largest demographic. It was (probably) the right thing for them to do. Why is it that the ramifications of that decision are so surprising to all of you? They knew what they were doing - I guarantee they're not surprised. So why are you?

Every time I hear someone say "Cater to the casual" I picture it being said by the WoW player from that South Park episode back in the day.

Have you played MoP or are you just making this up as you go? "I've seen so many people drive that car, I know how it handles!" lol...

Try doing it in a thread where people aren't complaining about lack of progress due to difficulty? Being smarmy can really backfire when you don't know what you're talking about.

[Orange Joe]

The hardcores have all left for other games. Why is this confusing to you people? Blizzard has chosen to cater to the casual because it made sound business sense to give the most attention to the largest demographic. It was (probably) the right thing for them to do. Why is it that the ramifications of that decision are so surprising to all of you? They knew what they were doing - I guarantee they're not surprised. So why are you?

Expect the term "end game content" in the future to be less and less about "killing bosses" and be more and more about "things my characters can do". Expect content to get easier and easier as the bar drops lower and lower due to the exodus of skilled and committed players. This is what you asked for. A game that's a hobby and not a lifestyle. Production quality will go up, challenge will go down and the lifespan of a dying game will be extended for awhile longer.

I've come to realize that Blizzard had to do what they did. It's shitty that people like me got left out in the cold, but it was the only way that the game could survive. They never would have made it to Titan if they'd continued to put so much resources into making their top players happy.

Other games like what? Is that why we are hearing the same guild names taking world firsts in this expansion?

[SamR]

The hardcores have all left for other games.

And which games would those be?

[skrump]

25m is all but dead and 10m is less exiting than a 5m heroic or challenge mode.
I myself am using this Xpac for little more than to stockpile gold and the weekly lfr Run.

I would of course be doing Pvp to gear each of my toons up to run Lfr since 18-35 minute queues for heroics suck, but alas blizz made the pvp gear available by honor too low of ilvl for lfr thus I am forced to waste 30 minutes waiting to do a 20 minute heroic.

In short this would of been a great expansion if blizzard would of put 10/25 on different lockouts and raised the ilvl of the basic pvp gear to be equal with the minimum requirement of lfr.

[dkdk]

From hardcore raiding in Cataclysm and completing the heroic raids at current content with minmal or no nerf, in MoP I'm done with raiding, the raids are no fun and made for kids tbh, I'm not saying that Cata's raids were a rose but these one are just boring, don't see myself raiding at all in this expac and seeing that as well in a lot of old ex raiders too. But casuals seem to be raiding more now, clearly content is easier than last expac. Needless to say I'll not raid at all even tho I only PVE'd the previous expac.

So you haven't raided this tier but its too easy and no fun for you to do? How does that even work? You've just seen that other people can do it so its not worth it for you? It would be one thing if you said "my guild downed all of MV the first week so this isn't for me" but the second raid just came out this week and the third raid isn't even out so saying its not fun and too easy makes no sense.

[Peacemoon]

WoW is not exclusively a PvE raiding game. I'm surprised this still shocks some people.

[Firecrest]

Every time I hear someone say "Cater to the casual" I picture it being said by the WoW player from that South Park episode back in the day.

Have you played MoP or are you just making this up as you go? "I've seen so many people drive that car, I know how it handles!" lol...

Try doing it in a thread where people aren't complaining about lack of progress due to difficulty? Being smarmy can really backfire when you don't know what you're talking about.

Are you trying to say that the game is not more casual friendly today than it was in previous expansions? We can have that discussion if you want, but you'll lose.

A lot of you fanboys get up in arms when people say things like "cater to the casual" because it's normally followed by a rant about how bad Blizzard is for doing so. Take a breather and read what I wrote instead of making assumptions about my intent. Blizzard has made the game more casual friendly and it was the right thing for them to do. I bet, if you take a moment to consider it instead of shooting off towards your regular defense tactics, you actually agree with that statement.

The content is not harder. You just have less people who have the experience and dedication to blow through it. And before you whip out whatever singular experience you have to refute that statement, "the content" means "the content" - not "Boss Fight X". It means the experience that your average player has from the moment he logs on until the moment he logs off. It means raids, yes, but it also means leveling, dungeons, questing and everything in between.

Other games like what? Is that why we are hearing the same guild names taking world firsts in this expansion?

And which games would those be?

I like that two of you decided to beat this tired drum. This is the part where I'm supposed to say that MMO X is the WoW killer and you get to mentally invalidate my entire position because the idea that anyone but Blizzard can dethrone WoW is preposterous. Right?

Don't the obvious traps you try to lay get old after awhile? The truth is that "other games" are just other games. Plural. They go to D3 or TL2 or BL2 or whatever game is this week's hot ticket. They go to consoles or they put more time into TV shows or (shockingly) hobbies that do not include a screen at all.

Further, this discussion is not about the half dozen top guilds that run around taking world firsts (who, might I add, have experienced massive turnover in their rosters). It's about the dwindling hundreds of thousands of people who are true hardcore gamers. It's about the repercussions of Blizzard turning their eye away from the few and towards the millions of players who are, in fact, casual (a term that reflects commitment more than skill). Those repercussions are not, in an overall sense, negative. The decision has extended the life of the game. However, there will be some downsides – such as the observation made that started this entire thread in the first place.

[dkdk]

Curious what realm you raid on. Just looking at random realms they all seem to have far fewer guilds this season compared to last season. Even the biggest busiest realms known for raiding.

Illidan 190 vs 477
Ravenholdt 21 vs 67
Area 52 168 vs 422
Frostmourne 160 vs 386
Malganis 148 vs 302
Blackrock 128 vs 270
Kil'jaeden 144 vs 330
Ner'zhul 74 vs167
Gurubashi 8 vs 58

Where are you pulling those numbers from, because I would be willing to bet that the number of raiding guilds in the first few weeks of DS were not that high. Plus when DS came out you could go in there right away if your guild was in firelands, whereas for MoP you had to get all of your raiders back together after the long break during DS and get everyone leveled to 90 and geared to run the raid. The number of guilds raiding in MoP will go up as time goes by, I'm sure there are lots of guilds that aren't raiding yet due to having to find people that are leveled and ready to raid.

[Cirque]

The jump in difficulty between LFR and Normal is immense, it's turning the majority of the player base off. You can call them Casuals/bads/kids/non-hardcore or whatever else.

This, really, it makes me very angry TBH. Not for myself, mind you - I raid heroic modes - but for a lot of my friends, or guildies in my alt's guild on another server, they are just being cockblocked by the first boss of MSV and there's no getting by it. The first boss of HoF looks less annoying for very casual players, but the AoE damage is pretty serious.

In short the problem is that, in DS (which my alt's guild couldn't clear before a lot of nerfs, mind you), at least all classes were treated equally. It was OK if one healer, or one tank, or some DPS were shit. If your RL was clueless, well, you COULD get by. The rest would make up for it - that's how I experienced raiding with them on this casual level. But for the first boss of MSV, you're either going to need an exceptionally skilled RL who can both handhold the entire raid as well as guide the tanks, or you're going to need tanks that know how to do it. This wipes the raid - no amount of dps or even healing (because the AoE is way too intense) can make up for that.

Similarly, the first boss of HoF. Sure, I can see the discs (we call it the Atramedes phase) can cause some unnecessary damage and even deaths on such casual raids, but it's not a problem that can't be overcome. The AoE healing - again, no amount of DPS or pro tanking is going to make up for that one or even two shit healers that are BOUND to be in such a casual raid. Result: this time you'll be wiping on healing.


I mean, it makes me sad, cause honestly, for more serious raiders these encounters are very easy anyway. We steamroll them, why would we care if it's made more accessible so these other players, who don't care to raid at a level such as ours, can do it as well? "We" have heroic modes anyway!

I mean I'm compassionate about this because I'd like these other guildies of mine to do their raids together and have fun, too. I know they like raiding, but I also know a lot of them, despite really TRYING, and they really do try! - just aren't capable of doing more. I feel this group has been neglected. After all, there's nothing like doing a raid just with your own guildies, and do progress on your own level, as opposed to getting placed in a big LFR group with those strangers.

Longer post than I intended but... Yeah, I feel sad for them. I know they were supposed to raid tuesday but I don't think it even happened.