WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers

[Aquamonkey]

I was thinking something more along the lines of involving group play. Could be via LFR/dungeons/scenarios or maybe something like...faction defense? Grouping up with other players to defend a reputation faction's hub...could also "boss" or rotating set of mini-bosses involved that could be defeated each day along with the waves of npc mobs that attack the hub, requires semi coordinated play between 5-10 players. Dunno, just an idea.

You could even offer a rep lockout timer after you defeat the mob waves/mini-boss waves so a player could only earn rep at the same rate as the dailies, if Blizzard was concerned about balancing the rep grind options.

Didn't they do this in Silithus and it bombed completely?

[Celista]

Didn't they do this in Silithus and it bombed completely?

That was pvp play and it was resource-based, I'm talking about scripted waves of npcs and a mini boss encounter. This literally just popped into my head though so I haven't fleshed everything out.

[Aquamonkey]

That was pvp play and it was resource-based, I'm talking about scripted waves of npcs and a mini boss encounter. This literally just popped into my head though so I haven't fleshed everything out.

There were also bosses for solo and group play unrelated to PvP resource gathering.

[Celista]

There were also bosses for solo and group play unrelated to PvP resource gathering.

Really? o.O I started in 2.1 patch so hell if I know. Anyways, it was just an idea...I don't think it would go over too badly if tuned correctly, could include an npc you talk to in order to start the encounter or something. Who knows though.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 01:08 AM ----------

Btw my other idea was equally bad, it involved pvp dailies and having the option to earn either valor or conquest per turn-in :P Although I WANT MORE PVP DAILIES...that earn something other than gold, that is.

[Aquamonkey]

Really? o.O I started in 2.1 patch so hell if I know. Anyways, it was just an idea...I don't think it would go over too badly if tuned correctly, could include an npc you talk to in order to start the encounter or something. Who knows though.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 01:08 AM ----------

Btw my other idea was equally bad, it involved pvp dailies and having the option to earn either valor or conquest per turn-in :P Although I WANT MORE PVP DAILIES...that earn something other than gold, that is.

The Scourge Invasion was really good. IIRC, necropoli spawned in random zones across both continents.

[Elite Peon]

500k subs is a huge financial hit no matter what you people say . That's about 8 million / mo in revenue plus the loss of whatever each account on average spends in the blizz store for things like pets and transfers and such ...probably maybe 10million /mo with all things added ...that's a lot of jobs I would say that have to be axed to make up for it .

Blizz you want to keep subs up ? Make the game more accessible to casuals not hardcore players ...they only make a small % of this game and keep pumping out content .. no new content since September is ridiculous when they have this many subs ..no excuse they need to hire more devs and get the content moving if they want to keep the sub numbers as high as they are .

[rhorle]

Blizz you want to keep subs up ? Make the game more accessible to casuals not hardcore players ...they only make a small % of this game and keep pumping out content .. no new content since September is ridiculous when they have this many subs ..no excuse they need to hire more devs and get the content moving if they want to keep the sub numbers as high as they are .

The game is as accessible as ever for casuals and has had new content since September. I think its time you rewrite your generic WoW angst complaint instead of just switching out the Months.

[Osmeric]

and mostly loses in china, who do not have the xpac.

China got MoP one week after the rest of the world did.

[Nikanorius]

I think that when they will finish the their film, the number of players will be increased, no doubt

[Celista]

I think that when they will finish the their film, the number of players will be increased, no doubt

Only if the film is halfway decent. We'll see...

[Lumineus]

Really? o.O I started in 2.1 patch so hell if I know.

The various Windstones in Silithus can be used in conjunction with certain items to summon solo, five, and ten man boss encounters. The reason it was so rarely done is that mats required to summon the raid boss are kind of obscene, so you typically killed it with 20-40 people just to make sure it died and the mats didn't go to waste. Then to appease the hardcore base, the summoned bosses only dropped ONE piece of loot, which then only had about a 20% chance of being an epic item. It was fucking bogus.

[sTyLnK]

Gasp. An 8 year old game with a monthly sub fee still has close to 10 million. I'll focus on the positives, thank you very much. The fact that this game STILL has that many subs is nothing short of amazing.

[kazso]

I think that when they will finish the their film, the number of players will be increased, no doubt

Even if the movie will be good, the chances are low that this will bring back ex-WoW players. For example i didn't go back to LOTRO after i watched The Hobbit

[Wilian]

The various Windstones in Silithus can be used in conjunction with certain items to summon solo, five, and ten man boss encounters. The reason it was so rarely done is that mats required to summon the raid boss are kind of obscene, so you typically killed it with 20-40 people just to make sure it died and the mats didn't go to waste. Then to appease the hardcore base, the summoned bosses only dropped ONE piece of loot, which then only had about a 20% chance of being an epic item. It was fucking bogus.

Just to clarify some bits.

1 man bosses dropped greens and rep items.

5 man bosses dropped level 58 BoE blues that power wise were well above the typical dungeon gear and these were fairly easy to farm up, these were made often atleast on my realm, many in succession

10-40 man bosses, these were mostly ignored for reasons you gave. But clumping them up in single group like that is borderline providing false information.

[rhorle]

Even if the movie will be good, the chances are low that this will bring back ex-WoW players. For example i didn't go back to LOTRO after i watched The Hobbit

You can bet though that Blizzard will have some kind of promotion to take advantage of it. I'm not sure if LOTRO had any cause I've never followed that game. It may be in-game it may not be. Also I think it might be different when the movie is a spinoff of the video game, and not the video game is the spin off of the movie/book. You can bet sales of the book Hobbit went up cause of the movie though.

[mercutiouk]

It won't. It wasn't the lack of content that drove players away from MoP.


Ofcourse not, because most games are P2P or F2P

Nope, it was the fact Cata was crap and their years contract ran out.

[Baldwyn]

About time these pr**ks are overpaid for the lack of effort into WoW the past 2 expansions. The complete and utter disdain that the design team has for certain specs (yes I was a ret paladin, and never happy with the perceived vs ingame role), particularly ele/enhance shaman/ret paladin vs a hybrid like druids, they were never balanced properly. And when long term half decent players tell these idiots what is wrong they just discard it, then half a year later agree that the issues were in fact what they were told 6-12 months prior, just 100% ar*ewipes, who can't admit they f**ked up big time, ALL the time. And mostly it's just so blatent to see as a player who they over or under buff, just astounding that these weasles can't see it, which sort of makes you think, THEY DELIBERATELY do it, to ensure the kiddies with 15 hours up their sleeve a day totally reroll and play FoM every 3 months, on top of the rest of the grind.

[Celista]

About time these pr**ks are overpaid for the lack of effort into WoW the past 2 expansions. The complete and utter disdain that the design team has for certain specs (yes I was a ret paladin, and never happy with the perceived vs ingame role), particularly ele/enhance shaman/ret paladin vs a hybrid like druids, they were never balanced properly. And when long term half decent players tell these idiots what is wrong they just discard it, then half a year later agree that the issues were in fact what they were told 6-12 months prior, just 100% ar*ewipes, who can't admit they f**ked up big time, ALL the time. And mostly it's just so blatent to see as a player who they over or under buff, just astounding that these weasles can't see it, which sort of makes you think, THEY DELIBERATELY do it, to ensure the kiddies with 15 hours up their sleeve a day totally reroll and play FoM every 3 months, on top of the rest of the grind.

There was a point in time where I would dismiss your post as being cynical, but after beta testing and reading the responses GC gave to in-game issues...yeah. I agree with you.

There was one particular beta thread regarding priest mana issues that went on for weeks...players complaining that they had to spam solace for most of the raid just to get their mana back, their actual healing output due to regen was pretty bad...then GC posts, "well, we'll just have to nerf solace then", and things stayed like that until well after expansion release.

Rogues were (arguably over) buffed and given a special legendary because the class wasn't being played enough, it wouldn't surprise me if they deliberately imbalanced things or made a half-assed attempt to balance things in order to encourage players to reroll every season, although there is no direct evidence to suggest that.

[Akka]

Blizz you want to keep subs up ? Make the game more accessible to casuals not hardcore players ...

Considering how pathetically casual the game has become since 3.0, I really wonder how people can still copy-paste this canned garbage...
Well, if anything, it proves that those who try to use this (lol) "argument" are probably just bots mindlessly repeating the same mantra even when it's been years since reality has gone farther than fiction...

[Osmeric]

Considering how pathetically casual the game has become since 3.0, I really wonder how people can still copy-paste this canned garbage...
Well, if anything, it proves that those who try to use this (lol) "argument" are probably just bots mindlessly repeating the same mantra even when it's been years since reality has gone farther than fiction...

Raid encounters have become more and more complex. Casuals in end game are shunted into the LFR ghetto. Casual guilds that want guild raiding are basically out of luck.