WoW Down to 8.3 Million Subscribers

[Hitei]

And people keep telling me that BC isn't as good as MoP... Sorry but it was better.

In what way?

[Fayenoor]

Or the dungeon upgrade set. Or find things to do just for the fun of doing it. And us weirdo RP types had that.

There is still all of the above. You can still go out and find fun things to do on your own. The other day I went to Winterspring for the first time in several years. Nostalgia set in -- all those hours spent on Timbermaw rep grind back in those days. Then another several hundred hours on my alliance NE for the Frostsaber mount.

Now it is a different place. Lots of new NPCs, new stories. Made me want to reroll another toon just so I can quest there again.

[Baracuda]

the game is improving. the problem is, it's STILL wow. despite frequent content updates. some of best raids ever. tons and tons of content, it's STILL wow. for example, i've been around many years. i know the raids and content is good, but i'd still rather play something fresher. ya know? Everquest is better than it's ever been, is it number 1? no. things get old. WoW will jump each new expansion, then bleed out from monotony that is still wow. It's still an old cat no matter how many new tricks it learns. Put it next to a kitten and you can't compete, unless that kitten scratches you and claws up your furniture that is (ie the game is an utter disaster)
The reason people keep returning to wow is the plain ole fact, no one has done better yet, plain and simple. Until someone does, wow will be king. however, it's going to stay in an endless cycle of "new expansion, lets see if i can feel it this time". followed by "yeah i still don't feel it, bye bye"

this is not me saying wow is bad at all. it's greatest it's ever been. it's great for new users. but all us vets, which are still a large sum of people, monotony

This isn't why I keep leaving, I keep leaving because they keep IGNORING server problems. You play on a low server you have no one to play with, you play on a full server you have queues and the opposing faction is exctinct(high servers eventually become full) and we STILL can't play arena cross-realm. I'm sure they're working on fixing this but we need it YESTERDAY!

The game is better than ever, imo, but these things that have nothing to do with the gameplay itself ruins it...

[dd614]

Time to rethink the raiding model. Get rid of heroic raids and make one difficulty with increasing difficulty just like we had in BC. Focus on quality raids and dungeons. Basically just take us back to BC style of progression.

[Dubalicious]

And people keep telling me that BC isn't as good as MoP... Sorry but it was better.

BC as a teenager vs. MoP as a mid-twenties year old. . . . probably not a good comparison

(I obviously have no idea how old you really are, but this is generally *fairly* accurate I think)

There's not a single game I played in 2004 that I would even consider playing today, so that automatically makes all those games really terrible? No, I just have different expectations and desires.

[Mirishka]

And people keep telling me that BC isn't as good as MoP... Sorry but it was better.

You do understand the definition of 'opinion' yes?

[Åmbulance]

No matter how you try to spin it, this is a huge loss, and been steadily declining. Blizz needs to fix the dead servers, and other things. But i still love it, and will throw my money at it.

[stellvia]

People need to remember the game has been around for almost 9 years now.

Think about it this way: Someone who got into WoW at release at age 16 would now be 25 years old. IE: Career, House, Kids, etc. They're either tired of the game period, or just don't have the time to commit to it anymore. And there are a lot more varied things to hold our interest in online entertainment in 2013 than in 2004.

[Deleted]

Pandaria is officially the biggest fail yet from blizzard. GG On making world of dailycraft blizz.

That is pretty much the same thing as saying that a 60 year old man running a 100 m dash on 13 sec. is a fail. If this expansion was put out 5 years ago, it probably wouldn't have lost any near that many.

[Sky High]

Last question answer is interesting:

(1) Most of the loss was in the east, specifically China.

(2) More generally, loss of engagement by casual players (I read: grind was a turn-off).

which I'm fine with on both. I don't give a shit about Chinese dropping en mass. nor do I much care for the people who don't have the time/patience to grind to get the gear they want. if you want instant mindless satisfaction they have mobil games for that. and if you don't have the time sorry, but you have to deal with either less then stellar gear or just walk away.

[Odina]

It's sad but I know contributing to that number is many of my old vanilla friends. So far this expact many of the people I played with since early vanilla have left.

One of the main reasons is that dailies felt too much like the tuber / blasted lands mindless farming to get ready for raid day that blizz said they wanted to get rid of. Now instead of farming tubers and basilik brains (just an example) you farm dailies to get ready for raid! Are dailies necesary? No and neither was tuber farming but try telling that to the rest of the raid / raid leader!

It's sad but options like running all your random dungeons in one day for those that are limited time players to get all there valor, having 5 mans come out with raids to fill in gaps, having an easy alt progression path etc etc are all things that have taken a step back to the old ways and have chased off many

I hope the game pushes on strong and lives on I love playing it still even though I only get 4-6 hours of play time a week >.<

[Perkunas]

Time to rethink the raiding model. Get rid of heroic raids and make one difficulty with increasing difficulty just like we had in BC. Focus on quality raids and dungeons. Basically just take us back to BC style of progression.

Also, 1 raiding size. None of this 2 size bullshit that's caused a huge rift in the raiding community. Hopefully this is what Blizzard needs to wake them up. A swift kick in the ass is good for one's ego from time to time.

[McNeil]

I'm not really enjoying MoP at this moment aswell, just saying. The start as pretty good

[kukui]

Not a chance, Titan is already planned as casual from the start on. The time of vanilla-like stuff is dead and buried.

Play WildStar. They have most of the original WoW Dev team working for them. They are bringing back 40man raids and such. They even stated that most MMO's cater 99% of the player base, the casuals. However they want to cater to the 1%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeUbXJZPkd0 (Interview and gameplay of the game from last month)

[SL1200]

It's funny to see people in here argue that they need to bring back BC when BC is exactly what they've been trying to bring back for 2 failed expansions.

[Faroth]

Play WildStar. They have most of the original WoW Dev team working for them. They are bringing back 40man raids and such. They even stated that most MMO's cater 99% of the player base, the casuals. However they want to cater to the 1%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeUbXJZPkd0 (Interview and gameplay of the game from last month)

I'm actually finding myself looking forward to what SOE does with the new EverQuest with what little news has come out surrounding it.

[Auxora]

It's kind of a non-story really. Both the wow is dying and it's not dying crowds are kind of correct. To play devil's advocate, people that say lol wow isn't dying, do you think wow will be around forever? Blizzard knows that wow (and really the mmo industry tbh) has been in slow decline since around 2008-2009. It's been slow, but the graph has been a clear downward curve in sub numbers with just some brief bumps up around expansion releases. That doesn't mean wow is shutting down next month or next year, but it won't be around forever. That said it will probably be around a long time. If they had to they could cut development to a minimum and the costs to maintain the servers and support would be extremely low. They could probably support even just 1 million or less subs. The only reason this recurring debate comes up every quarter and has any importance is that if sub numbers drop enough, Blizzard could pull off (more) developers for other projects which would mean less wow content. Along the same lines, if sub numbers drop enough Blizzard might say that it's embarrassing or hurting the Blizzard brand and pull the plug. Wow has been a ridiculous cash cow so Blizzard will just move onto another product with a similar business and gaming model, Titan or something else, if they make that decision. Blizzard is smart and has far more player information than is public, so you can be sure they will be the first to see which direction the game is headed in popularity. That's probably why they pulled off the top wow developers for Titan a few years ago to stay ahead of the curve.

[Screwy Maverick]

does anyone else want to admit that MoP was a good expansion or throw out their illogical opinion that we'll look back and say MoP was great... that person, whoever you are... you are wrong. WoW is nothing like it used to be and people are finally realizing that. I'm glad, I really am... no one deserves to make money off of a game when it was amazing and then turned to crap and made into a cash cow. Lets wait for Q2... maybe subs will be under 5 million.

It's a good thing opinions are subjective.

I'll take WoW today over vanilla, BC, Wrath or Cata WoW, and I've been playing since I walked into Gamestop the day the game was released.

[Freese]

None of this 2 size bullshit that's caused a huge rift in the raiding community.

How has this caused a rift? People would unsub and have unsubbed in the past when they felt like the raid content was too difficult. True, people are still unsubbing now, but could that perhaps be due in part to people becoming tired of the raiding model in general?

[Perkunas]

Play WildStar. They have most of the original WoW Dev team working for them. They are bringing back 40man raids and such. They even stated that most MMO's cater 99% of the player base, the casuals. However they want to cater to the 1%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeUbXJZPkd0 (Interview and gameplay of the game from last month)

Yeah, this is looking like a new home for the old-school WoW fans. We're finally going to get a dev team that cares about us.