February 7: Blizzard Conference Call

[Kraenen]

I'm expecting a 6 million drop in subs

[Seranthor]

I predict that if the sub number is 9.5M or above then Blizzard is going to get accused of faking the numbers, if the number is less than that then I predict a flurry of threads about 'Wow is dying, you better do X' fill in X with your FOTM wish.

[Count Zero]

That's the thing though, I thought I had 3 options. First, too many dailies, and I would get frustrated. I thought I could handle it by focusing on 1 faction at a time, but it didn't help matters at all.

Well unfortunately the verbal harassment is actually pretty common. Even in the CRZ threads, some posters posted that they were being harassed through chat, usually through whispers, and being unable to ignore or report them, because CRZ broke that feature and would return a "That player does not exist" error

I felt overwhelmed by the number of dailies available myself, initially. But then I decided I would only focus on the ones that gave me access to gear at first (leaving out Cloud Serpent, Tillers, Anglers). Then after I got to exalted with those, I hit up the vanity-reward factions. Helped me immensely with not being frustrated at the timesink. But for you really, it sounds like maybe you've just sorta burnt out on the game (the bad experiences certainly don't help).

As far as ignoring off-server folks, I've found I've been able to do it by manually typing "/ignore CharacterName-ServerName". Hope that helps. If nothing else, you can manually open a ticket to report someone for that type of behavior if the report function doesn't work.

Best wishes.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

I'm expecting a 6 million drop in subs

Can I have what you're smoking?

[Kraenen]

Can I have what you're smoking?

i've been smoking CRZ

[danawhitaker]

I think you'll see more of a dip than people are anticipating here. Why? Because of the fact that 1-year-commitment started to run out for people, and many of us didn't bother coming back. The majority of my guild dropped their subs, myself included. The daily grind wasn't fun, CRZ isn't fun, not being able to fly in the new questing zones wasn't fun, and the fact that they now seem to be snubbing the idea of people leveling lots of alts (which is something lots of people in my guild did) meant that I didn't really have anything to do anymore.

For the entire last 2 months left on my subscription, I barely logged in. I'm glad that some people are still enjoying the game I guess, but for me the pinnacle of access to content and fun factor was near the middle/end of Wrath. I will not be coming back unless substantial changes are made, some of them are non-negotiable. My guild went from raiding weekly during Cata and Wrath to not raiding at all once MoP hit, even after people hit 90 and started gearing (with the exception of a few people running LFR).

I think the big thing that you're overestimating is how much casual players "enjoyed" this expansion, and casual players exist in larger numbers than hardcore/elitist players. The hardcores may be the most vocal and chatty around here about liking/loving this expansion and the changes, but many of the rest of us simply drifted away and won't come back. My Xbox has seen more playtime in the last week than the entire last two months of my WoW sub. I used to consider myself a hardcore/casual, and logged in every day, spent a few hours on vent after my daughter went to sleep at night running stuff or questing. There was a period of almost three years where I didn't miss logging on one day, even when I had surgery to have my wisdom teeth removed. It wasn't Blizzard adding things like LFR and LFD to the game that ruined my guild. It was MoP, pure and simple. We weren't huge, but we had a very consistent base of people that started to vanish a month into the expansion after hitting 90.

I'm sure the attitude to my post will be that you're glad casual players like us are gone, but eventually that'll come back to bite you.

[Asphyxiate9]

I dont believe the subs will drop too much this time, I'm expecting a gain actually, but I'm a strong believer they will drop 2mil if there is another 12 month gap without content.

The last update on subs was just a week or so after Mists launched and thats not accounting for sales over the next 4 months where sales still are fairly high, including christmas.

[Deleted]

That's the thing though, I thought I had 3 options. First, too many dailies, and I would get frustrated. I thought I could handle it by focusing on 1 faction at a time, but it didn't help matters at all. Leveling an alt was out of the question with CRZ, and doing dungeons got just as repetitive as dailies, only with a crowd that is quite often as snotty as the people I was trying to get away from in CRZ. And heroic runs, again, more dungeons, and PuGs that with 1 wipe, disbanded. When you knock out leveling an alt and heroics, I was stuck with just the dailies. So the options were gone for me.

I am very confused by some of this.

I really want to know during Cata what did you do?

Your saying that all the heroics you join wipe and disband? If this is the case now (where heroics are far easier than in 4.0) what happened in 4.0?

What did you do?

Since outside of raiding in 4.0 the ONLY content was heroics, in 5.0 (and 5.1) there are more options not less and the options are actually easier not header.

OT: Pretty sure there will be a dip in subs I love MoP more than any expansion before.

I still log in every day and have options about what I want to do the only thing I do every day is tend to my farm.

Sometimes I do LFR.
Sometimes I do Heroics.
Sometimes I do Scenarios.
Sometimes I do Dailies (./gasp I don't do these every day!)
Sometimes I go Relic Hunting.
Sometimes I (try) to do Challange Modes.

But I really think there is a threshold on how many subs a single game can have.

WotLK was the peak of subs the "sweet spot" so to speak, I think there was still new people joining WoW at this point I no longer this is the case, so I do truly believe wow is in "decline" and there will be peaks and troffs around content patches and expansions but I think more people are leaving than coming back or starting new.

If you look around at the MMO market which sub game is managing to hold on to any subs let alone the amount WoW has?

---------- Post added 2013-01-19 at 09:17 AM ----------

For the entire last 2 months left on my subscription, I barely logged in. I'm glad that some people are still enjoying the game I guess, but for me the pinnacle of access to content and fun factor was near the middle/end of Wrath. I will not be coming back unless substantial changes are made, some of them are non-negotiable. My guild went from raiding weekly during Cata and Wrath to not raiding at all once MoP hit, even after people hit 90 and started gearing (with the exception of a few people running LFR).

I am interested in why you stopped raiding.

Do you think the 4.0 raids where more accessible than the 5.0 raids?

I thought they where actually pretty similar.

The heroics where 100% more accessible in 5.0 compared to 4.0, and ofc we had LFR in 5.0 which we did not in 4.0.

[therayeffect]

My opinion is all over the place. I'm pretty sure it won't be a DS drop but I'm pretty sure it won't be a 250k+ jump. I'm going to guess a 300k loss but wouldn't be shocked if it went up 100k or loses 500k or anything in-between. The game is just so boring now and uninteresting. I could go into detail and make a long-winded speech about all the issues of WoW and what Blizz could do about them but I know they won't listen and I don't really care anymore. I quit 10 days ago (feels like I blinked, can't believe it's been that long already) and the main reasons I quit are, in no particular order, dailies, VP grind, people's shitty internet, complete disregard for Alts and the game REALLY showing its age this expansion. This was to me, by far and away the worst initial part of an expansion ever and I'm glad it's over. That shit was brutal and I went in with really low expectations because I got to try beta. From my point of view the servers, at least in the US, seem to be dying and dying fast as hell. Honestly wouldn't be shocked if it was as high as a 750k drop. I'd be a little surprised but it would simply show that my personal view of the game wasn't a solo-view. It really felt, from my small PoV, that a lot of people quit during DS, saw MoP and pretty much pegged it as a kid-friendly boring grind-fest that wasn't deserving of their money and thus they didn't come back. We'll see though, we'll see what happens.

[dokilar]

id say not a substantial gain or loss, maybe 250-500k in either direction. id say theyll still be around the 10 million mark

[Deleted]

How could we possibly know how many subs they have?

[McNeil]

How could we possibly know how many subs they have?

Just guessing till the official numbers are revealed on February 7. Than we can see who's prediction was right

[Osmeric]

Going to go with a decline in active accounts to around 9.5M. However, financial performance will be good.

[Deleted]

Just guessing till the official numbers are revealed on February 7. Than we can see who's prediction was right

On what basis do you guess? Random numbers?

[Corruptsoul]

There are plenty of people who have resubscribed because MoP is actually good. I'm one of them, I know a dozen others who are now playing who quit during Cataclysm.

[Fullgore]

-drop in subscribers to around 9 -9.5 milj
-blizzcon

[Arbs]

And 50% of the closest rival and more than double of the rest of the competition.

---------- Post added 2013-01-19 at 02:20 AM ----------



Pretty much the only thing stockholders really care about.

Same as the haters they only care about a loss in subs and will continue to hide under bring or in the shadows until it comes.

---------- Post added 2013-01-19 at 10:50 AM ----------

It's a little ridiculous that people think the RMAH was created with the sole purpose to earn Activision/Blizzard money. Sure they got maybe a few hundred thousand at the peak but that is hardly a dent in what they make with their flagships.

Also everyone here must have a lode of money invested in Activision/Blizzard stock.

*Raises Hand, My Grandfather & his company are invested in Activ/Blizz, They had alot of investments in other companies involved in gaming. but they pulled out and only rolling with 3 companies now use to be 5.

Yet there are no forced dailies that you speak of.

Phillip is right, there are no forced dailies, People just use anything to complain about.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Looking at this thread I can confirm one thing. Be it a drop, rise, or nothing in subscribers, these forums will be flooded with people claiming WoW is dead, WoW is fine, that Y change ruined the game, and that X needs to be fired

[McNeil]

On what basis do you guess? Random numbers?

I personally rate it judging by when stuff like this happens:

- New MMO gets released, atleast 400k subs lost
- WoW has been out to long without updates, lost of 500k
- The patch we are currently in is too amazing, 300 subs gained

In the end when they reveal their numbers, I can see if I was right :P

[Osmeric]

The fact they announce it this early is a good sign for the group.

They announce the Q4 results in early Feb every year. This is not unusual.

I think the game is in a fairly healthy state, though.