This is only partly true. DBM and big wigs existed Back in TBC as early as Karazhan. I was a veteran raider then on a top guild that pushed progression, had all the attunements, and BIS gear while it was still relevant. Did most of the players that were not raiding have those addons? No, but the whole concept of addons was relatively new and beyond that there was no curse auto update feature you had to manually extract each addon each and every time you needed to update it. I would say many people had Cosmos as Thottbot used coordinates and the cosmos ui pack allowed you to find quest locations etc much easier.
Raiding was more challenging back then because there has never been a game with boss mechanics like those before, ever, period. If there were there was not a 25 or 10 man coordinated effort required to beat them. Beyond even that VOIP programs were the only way to successfully explain new boss mechanics. It was truly the novelty of having something new and exciting put in front of us that had a truly level playing field that made The Burning Crusade the best expansion. Surely the game has evolved but I would describe the updates as more Evolutionary and not Revolutionary. WoltK was probably close as it provided more content and mostly balanced pvp, but they shifted scope when GC took over and the game has been seeing no revolutionary changed. In many ways I view Cataclysm and MoP as a giant leap backwards in terms of innovation.
Having said all this, WoW will lose its player base as players grow weary of seeing the same old dog and pony show Blizzard continuously puts in front of them. i think you will see that the average player can only play WoW now for a few years tops before the fatigue sets in. I played since middle/end of Vanilla, raided and pvp'd hardcore through out TBC and Wrath, took a 6 month break in Cata after my laptop died and arena partners quit, then came back towards the end and played MoP for about 2 months before I just realized that I hadn't been happy since Wrath. It was my teammates from arena that kept me involved and they slowly converted to other games like LoL. Private servers could work, if you reset them and set up arms races with guilds. You see season based games being very successful on the web right now,from league of legends to browser based games like Travian. If you make a private server along those lines and make it competitive I would imagine they would be very successful. Just my 2 cents.
Mark my words that unless they figure out a way to get back into the REVOLUTIONARY game design you will see WoW's numbers drop slowly, but steadily. I read MMO champ periodically to see patch notes, but I am disgusted by what I see, particularly when it comes to PvP. Others I am sure are as well. I really want to come back, hit all my WoW homies on my skype list and organize a reunion, but sadly there is no reason to play a game over and over and over. You can dress up a tired old whore in nice clothes, give her all the plastic surgery required to take 15-20 years off her face/body, but at the end of the day she is still the tired old whore that will become less and less desirable once the novelties of her window dressings wear off. Then she starves and dies. WoW is a tired old whore... let her rest.
My argument is and always has been that just because YOU'RE not liking the game doesn't mean everyone else is in the same boat as you. I am merely saying that I am currently enjoying it. Have I always? No. But you can bet your ass and your bottom dollar that I didn't once feel the compulsion to make a thread about it.
You don't like it? Fine, don't pay, don't play. I'm not going to feel sorry for you. In fact, I'm not going to feel anything for you. I don't care what you like or don't like. But anyone that's truly fed up enough to not play is merely wasting their time reading - much less POSTING - on a fan site dedicated to the very thing they have chosen is no longer for them. If you're here, it's for 1 of 3 reasons, you either like the game, you don't like the game and want to troll those that do, or you say you hate the game and you've gotten yourself convinced that you do, but you can't stop yourself from thinking about it which means you're addicted and need help. So let me help you if you're in that camp - get out, go outside, go find something you do like.
Worse you get threads that are just BEGGING for people to come and cheerlead. Eg:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...eople-hate-MoP
quo erad demonstratum. For every SLIGHT and MILD criticism you may have against the game a legion of people will come and tell you why you are wrong. The question is why they protest so much at every little negative thing you can bring up? If they were so confident about how amazing the game was then it really shouldn't matter if negative aspects are brought to light. Me thinks the ladies doth protest to much...
MMO champ not WOW champ and not saying everyone has to agree either. either way this is derailing the thread so yea
---------- Post added 2013-02-02 at 10:23 PM ----------
I have noticed the same things but none the less that has really nothing to do with the sub numbers
Go look at the first page in the general forums. How many negative threads to do you see? ONE.. count em ONE and that's not even talking about quitting it's a mild criticism about the way 25 man raids are handled. Your awful sensitive about a game that is soooooooooo spectacular.
I'm always amused by the amount of people that, for one reason or another, have stopped playing wow and then come to threads like this and make statements of how many subs wow is going to lose etc.
If you don't like playing the game and have quit, why do you care how many subs it has?
If you don't like playing the game but haven't quit, there are bigger concerns than how many subs wow will lose or gain.
Prediction? That's easy! I predict that there is absolutely no number or data that could be released that won't generate a thread complaining about the data. Depending on the particular trend, we can also guess who will probably post that thread.
Just because the name says "MMO champ" doesn't change the fact this is a wow fansite.
A circle jerk of people who quit WoW.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-that-quit-wow
Quitting because of movie
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...cause-of-movie
Most of it is people wanting MoP or casuals or key futures removed. Overall complaining
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...thing-from-WoW
Guy lying and trying to try up negativity.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...n-HUH-NNOOO!!!
Pointless thread about a guy's opinion.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...WoW-went-wrong
Guy trying to stir people up and trolling.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...rent-expansion
There are also a bunch of locked short threads of people trying to troll but quickly shut down. And this was only from last week.
Well I do like your response, but DBM didn't release until maybe before or during Sunwell, TBC released with Kara in Jan 2007 so unless you started to do Kara when DBM released I guess I can agree with you. An what mechanics back than? you mean the Tank & Spank get hit like a truck ones, AoE heal & Dps like a mad man and hope nothing drops on you?? Its wasn't that hard you just had to be quick & alot of people were new to raiding in TBC so maybe thats why it seemed hard & amazing. I was in Nightmare's Asylum from Vanilla - Wrath. There are somethings about raiding I don't like & do miss. I only thing I don't like about current raiding is something comes down to me, I don't have the time commitment to raid at a top level anymore. Back than you gave up 3-4 nights for raiding you start at said time & only push over if need too.
Back than I had alot of free time nowadays I don't and I'm greatful for LFR even if its filled horrible players I can still access raid content something that love an would love to go back & compete on a high level again. But time is something I don't have anymore. I'm one of many people who got to raid MC / BWL / OL / Naxx 40 on a 3-4 week schedule and I'm proud of my accomplishments same in TBC. But myself & many other people found it only hard as it something brand new to us and we were learning and wanted to be the best 8 years later. I'm many people are seasoned veterans at raiding with everything we have it takes less time to learn than it was back than. Learning curve is much easier the raids are still as hard & wont get any more difficult, Guild will done content no matter how much Blizzard throws at them. WoW doesn't need anything innovative its 8 years old that what Titan is for.
But like I said I like your post and understand completely where your coming from, We just seen Back in the day raiding differently I guess.
Last edited by Arbs; 2013-02-03 at 12:51 PM.
I don't always hunt things, But when I do, It's because they're things & I'm a Bear.
9 million by Blizzard (which actually means 5.5 million without lies).
Based on http://wow.realmpop.com/
EU: 2,921,261 Characters from level 86-90 (many of them alts, and some of them already unsubbed)
US: 2,663,053 Characters from level 86-90 (many of them alts, and some of them already unsubbed)
Last edited by mmoc8f3b353ca4; 2013-02-03 at 01:32 PM.
I predict that me and all my friends will still be subscribed and that nothing else will matter.
What about paying subscribers that are yet to reach 86? Doesn't their money count for you?
So you are only counting people that are level 86 or higher, have posted an auction or are guilded as subscribers?How - To get the list of characters for a realm, first we record all the characters who posted to the auction house. Then we fetch and record their guild rosters. This should cover the majority of characters on a realm. To avoid getting listed, a character must never post to the auction house, and never belong to a guild where a guild member posts to the auction house.
Same as always.
Increase in subs, must be Blizzard lying, or increase in gold sellers, players were "fooled" into returning for MoP or whatever.
Steady: same as above, but it's because the loss of "real" subs is equal to the gain in "bots/goldsellers/chinese" subs
Loss: SEE SEE SEE PANDAS SUCK PEOPLE HATE IT MY REALM USED TO HAVE X NOW ITS Y PLAYERS AND MY GUILD HAS DWINDLED FANBOYS DEFENDING THE GAME HAHAHA ENJOY UR DYING GAME
Me? I expect a loss around half a million tops. 300k maybe. It doesn't matter how good expansions are when a game is this old. It doesn't attract new players anywhere close to it did when it was new. Keyword: NEW. Hopefully most of the sub losses is mostly those who couldn't adapt to the changes from the 2h/week 4.3 bore-fest
Personally I see no correlation between subs and my gameplay experience. But it's nice whenever the numbers shut the quitters up for a moment. But I'd be living in a fantasy if I thought WoW will last forever.
Last edited by MasterHamster; 2013-02-03 at 01:44 PM.
Active WoW player Jan 2006 - Aug 2020
Occasional WoW Classic Andy since.
Nothing lasts forever, as they say.
But at least I can casually play Classic and remember when MMORPGs were good.
Last edited by mmoc8f3b353ca4; 2013-02-03 at 01:45 PM.