What's the main reason for the dropping WoW subs?

[goblingirl]

Lol
1. Getting raid ready doesn't take much time at all especially if you know what you're doing and also its nice to have friends to help bring you to older content.

I would amend that to say ONLY if you know what you're doing, AND/OR you have friends to carry you.

One big true thing about WoW is sub churn. People quit for good every single day. The thing that keeps the subscription numbers up is new subs. New players don't have 8+ years of experience with the slow evolution of gear and gear enhancement. They DO struggle with how to get it, how to fix it once they have it, etc. Rather than put a ton of effort into itemization, Blizzard opted to throw in systems like gem slots and reforging, which does two things: pleases us min/maxers who want to wring every single thing we can out of our gear, and pisses off the people who don't know it, don't understand it, and are annoyed they are expected by their player peers to spend tons of time outside the game figuring it out.

I'm a hard core min/maxer, and at this point, I would not cry if jewelcrafting and reforging were permanently removed from the game tomorrow.

[Repefe]

Lol
1. Getting raid ready doesn't take much time at all especially if you know what you're doing and also its nice to have friends to help bring you to older content.
2. LFR is not even close to being Mandatory. I've done it once this tier and that was for offspec gear I don't even use. Have yet to do it since and won't do it because I don't need to.

1. In LoL getting a game takes 1-3 minutes ... no requirements at all. You start the game, you say you want to play, you play. Let's say you haven't played for a month or two or ten ... you start the game, you say you want to play, you play. Let's say you don't know anyone in the game ... you start the game, you say you want to play, you play. In WoW the alternative is to do LFR ... but that is content without challenge i.e. grind. That gets old fast.
2. If you don't have gear from previous tier, LFR seems like the most efficient option to gear up.

[ravenmoon]

Yes, indeed, "So is WoW's", yesss and that's part of the problem!! I just repeated it, not once but several times in this very thread, I said, they're BOTH themepark designs, (every single game you mentioned so far in thread as a matter of fact, is) and therefore are all boring, stale, static! Even the great, lauded GW2 that was supposed to 'revolutionize' the themepark design into something fun!! xD

The only thing Blizz is committed to is making money, the 1 way they could genuinely be said to be 'hardworking' is in making game dev decisions that help increase ATVI's stock share price in the end. There is no difference between looking at members of US Congress, to give you an example, and saying "Ooh they're hardworking folks!!" & saying that, about a PUBLIC corporation like Activision-Blizzard. They've been scared of doing anything sandboxy & truly dynamic/engaging to wow for over 8 years now, because that might be revolutionary/risky/untested waters, and that's not what narrow-minded, visionless investors / executives / shareholders want.., and it's still not showing signs of being any different.

Same as WoW's boring themeparkianism, for all the other companies releasing/maintaining big mainstream themepark games, like :

~> -TOR- (Star Wars Old Republic ~ I know, great, moving storylines, unique item slot/'enchanting'/modification scheme, & companions, wow, all this will magically NOT make me bored to death after I've played a bit & done the storylines over..?? Can I go over to distant planets & take over bases/cities/ships & help raise an empire dynamically..?? Against PvE or PvP opponents or both?? Can I have any impact whatsoever in the gameworld that doesn't get wiped off the minute I'm done w/ that quest/move on to play another character/or in another game zone..??)
~> -Rift- (Whoa no 'real' class or spec restrictions..?? I can pick & mix any talents/spells together & make my own class (sort of), taking on different combat roles as needed in a fight? And what do I do this fighting in question, for..?? Oh, to repeat the same old boring themepark gear/content treadmills & inconsequential PvP? Ahh haha I see..)
~> -WS/WSO- (WildStar ~ Oohh look edgy hardmode, old-school, bring back the challenge, but guess what - What're the players doing these difficult raids & hardcore content for..?? That's right, for no reason other than stat gains & 'content cleared' badges of honor on their toons! Not for actual lasting (even if short time), dynamic, engaging game world impact!!)(Out in 2014)
~> -FFXIV- (Ohh look, old school & PITA-asian-hard gameplay, but guess what, still the same old static gear/content systems as the other themeparks! Still boring!)
~> -GW2- (What's that? Refreshingly different combat/item-based skills mechanics? No real set class roles/forced 'trinity'?? New paradigms in world exploration & (very limited) personal story? Well, I've to say, that starts to sound like it just MAY not be repetitive & inconsequential/unchallenging/unengaging enough to be considered yet another of those boring themepark designs, this is almost sandpark or sandboxy themepark!! & + WvWvW too.. Hmm..!! Well, grats!! Now if I can get a PC that can run this finally.. (I'm broke and I've a dinosaur ;p)
~> -TESO- (Even that drooled-over Elder Scrolls paragon, is set to be the biggest classic themepark example of modern mmo days)(Out in 2014)
~> -TSW- (The Secret World ~ Ooh mysterious world conspiracies & cryptics, guess what, STILL boring themepark gameplay)
~> -MVUO(?)- (Marvel Universe aka The Avengers/Hulk/Capt America/Ironman etc)
~> -Destiny- (Activision/Bungie's MMOFPS, not out till 2016+)
~> -CoH/CoV- (City of Heroes/Villains, passed away)
~> -DCUO- (DC Universe aka Batman/Superman etc)
~> -LotRO- (Lord of the Rings)
~> -AoC- (Age of Conan)
~> -STO- (Star Trek)
~> -D&DO-
~> -TERA-
~> -Aion-
~> -EQ2-

Now there's a small chance somewhat sandboxy upcoming games like ArcheAge & EQ3 (EQ Next), and even Blizz's Titan or WoW2, may bring about a truly mix between dynamic sandbox fun but without the confusing void of e.g. EvE Online open-ended lack of direction making lots of new players just feel 'lost' (what do I do next, where should I go) :

~> -AAge- (Asian-style, who knows if it'll be sandboxy enough to be continuously engaging, but I doubt it =/)(Was out in Asia this year, Out in USA next year)
~> -EQ3- (EQ Next, drooled-over as the savior of MMOs, apparently custom housing makes a game totally awesome-sandbox, yea.. =/)(Not out till 2017+)
~> -Titan- (Blizz obviously waiting for ATVI's Destiny to be released before finishing work on TT, given that it's pretty much the same themes (as Assassins' Creed..... ;p) for both games..)(Not out till 2019+)
~> -TRP- (The Repopulation, not out till 2016+?)
~> -WoW2- (Not out till 2024+)

See, you need strong sandbox features, in your themepark game, to make it fun, make it last, without a constant churn of players subbing in & out because they can't justify staying just to login daily (after a while, when they seen the sights) to simply idle in capital cities/LFR, bored, the same repetitive undriven gameplay time after time, the meaningless gear treadmill, so they just quit.

In a sandbox design or at least a solidly sandboxy-themepark, you won't have that, since the very core of the gameplay & game world systems is specifically set to encourage dynamic, engaging, immersive, challenging player interaction w/ their world and w/ the PvE & PvP components of the game. It makes you CARE, it makes you EXHILARATED when you play, EVERYTIME, not just THE FIRST TIME YOU ENTER THAT ONE RAID etc, & it makes you WANT to 'win' whatever battles you fight in the game because they have intrinsically TANGIBLE rewards attached to them that actually change something in your & others' gameplay, not just 'candy' rewards that add +stats, +loot/game currencies, or +achievements/pets/mounts/titles/gear appearance options. You get tired of getting those themeparky rewards (the stats/gear/loot/pets/mounts/achievs etc type) after a while - because they don't really matter, don't really change your gameplay meaningfully. You already had tons of pets, mounts, stats, gear, great looks, tons of achievs, what more are these extra ones gonna provide..?? =/

So, what IS a real sandbox then? One that truly makes you want to play & play more, without feeling tired or repetitive usually..?? Well :

~> -PFO- (Pathfinder Online, based on Pathfinder RPG which is the biggest non-D&D tabletop RPG system at the moment, is designed/started by ex-Wizards employees & is THE spiritual successor to old AD&D2 & D&D3.5 basically)(Out in 2015)
~> -SCO/SCz- (Star Citizen Online, one of the biggest KStarter project successes ever and getting bigger by the day)(2015+)
~> -WoD- (World of Darkness Online, also made by CCP Games, not out till 2018+)
~> -EvE- (EvE Online & Valkyrie/Dust-514, of course, made by CCP Games)
~> -MO- (Mortal Online, it's very small, struggling, underdeveloped though =/)
~> -EoC- (Embers of Caerus, near-vaporware for ages to come still =/)

~> -EI- & -??- (..&, Of course, last but not least.. My very own 2 MMO designs.. over a decade in the making ;p)(Not out till 2023+ & 2030+)

nice post btw,

on the one hand, MMO are well, MASSIVE.. huge world, , huge levels, in theory, these are supposed to take you quite a while to get through, they don't, so you finish the hard to build content too fast.
and then hit an end game for too long.


i think this is part of the problem. A better way has to be found to utilize exist content than the current model. Sandbox type setting I fully agree with, and this should be the approach to end game, you should be able to in a sense build your own little empire that affects the world around you.

1. Levelling - they should cap it earlier than they design, find ways to stall you. Long to level games were not popular, wow showed easy to level fast to progress made the game hugely popular .. problem with that model is that you burn through content too fast and are at end game in no time

propose: the more you play the slower you level. You don't want a person who only has an hour to play a day or 2 hrs a week to never progress, ecause you've slowed down levelling fo the guy who's clocking in 14 hrs per day. SwToR was not a bad game, it took much longer than wow to level but people burned through the content because they mainly skipped the videos, hit end game far sooner in much greater numbers than the dev team had estimated, people got bored, and the 5 mil following dwindled to less than a million in the 2 months it took for their next raid to come out, but by that time, the disappointemnt of the fans had turned hwaat had been only 2 months earlier the most exciting experience to hit th emmo marke tsince wow, to be slated as the most negative experience.

I've thought, that if levelling was not controlled by exp only, what if it was a combo of exp and actually time. No one can pass level x till after y hours.

doens't mean you have nothing to do when you can't level, you can be exploring the world, improving your gear for that level range in BGs and arenas and instances - improving your gold, finding out more about the world, the zone and the environment. It allows those who have 1 hr to play to not necesarily be far behind those who have 14 hrs to play, but 14 hr player would have advantages over 1 hr player if not in level at least in gear and other htings.

2. Dynamic quests, and dynamic impact. I agree with you here totally, find ways to allow things to be dynamic, what can you be doing when you can't grow any further? establish your power base or your trading empire etc, menas to do this. imagine if you could gain political power? or lead intelligence services? or be in charge of the bank? build a city or become it's mayor? take over territories as a Filed Marshal or General amongst your peers.

other ways of rewarding other than hey, i've got phine loot.. all need to be considerations.


WoW and SwTOR... how different it would have been.. Can't level any more today because of the level cap? not interested in bolstering your toon or bolsetered him all you can for that level? done all the quests? not interested in working towards being a Lord, or rising in the army ranks trhough BGs or securing your economic foothold or getting a house? how about start levelling another alt to get to where your current character is?

game must also have some seroiusly good rewards for having more than one toon, making a lot of things easier.. it always helps to have another toon with different professions. What if your other toon can serve as a companion to accompnay you and you can switch control whiles playing to the main toon or other companions?

so much you can do, these guys just don't htink enough out of the box, and they've had years to do it, with only slight improvements. if my character could learn another class specialization while waiting for the level cap to ise again in the next x hours?

i couldn't even invent a system of ability levls, so although XP has capped the level i'm at, killing stuff and doing quests will gain xp that improves my abilities power and effects. ther is always some form of character development i can be engaged in.

[papajohn4]

Ok, 20 pages and everyone thrown an opinion about why is losing...the same excuses.."people move on", "it is old game", e.t.c. I just know(Blizzard said) that in Mist of Pandaria they lost almost 1/4 of the playerbase. There were always people who leave from the game and people who come...but this last period there was a mass exodus. It is unlikely that 1/4 of playerbase suddenly realized (all at the same time) that wow is old...and except from Vanilla wow, there were always many other games to play and many that existed before wow...

Bad decisions are bad decisions and the worst part of all is that is almost impossible to go back cause people are already spoiled from these decisions and the community have dramatically changed because of these decisions...

[Treeba]

Ok, 20 pages and everyone thrown an opinion about why is losing...the same excuses.."people move on", "it is old game", e.t.c.

They are all valid "excuses." People leave for every reason that has been mentioned in this thread. This isn't anything new. Blizzard has even come out and said they're losing this number of people isn't anything new. They just aren't attracting nearly the number of new and/or return players they once did. There are tons of reasons for why this is true, but chief among them is age. How many games of WoW's age are still growing steadily? The fact it has this number of people willing to pay per month to play an old game is a testament to the fact it isn't doing anything wrong. It's just old and that makes it very hard to attract players who haven't played it before or don't have friendly currently playing. The same thing will eventually happen with games like LoL. Sooner or later it's just going to start losing active players and not bringing in enough new/return players to offset it. It might not have anything to do with something they've done to the game.

These threads just draw so much attention because it's drama. Bored people reading forums who are mostly looking for some drama to entertain them for a few minutes.

[Polybius]

imo, the game just looks and feels dated.

Compare it to all the more recent games, what's WoW missing? - it looks OLD .. but is it the vintage kind of old wine feel to you? or is it more like old people's home old feel?

imo, do a WoW 2, wrap up this one in the next 2-3 years and relaunch the game and this time with an engine they can upgrade.. a more long term vision.

I'm not sure if any amount of tweaking would make a difference... do you know of anything blizzard could do to attract your friends that quit?

Updating the engine will attract players but drop even more subs. Some people play WoW with older computers when they're not at home, and others just continue on their ancient computers (all comps serve the same purpose anyway).

[Planetarism]

Problem is that WoW (and any other raiding MMO for that matter) does not mix well with rl. If someone wants to spend his free time gaming ... there are better alternatives than WoW. One of the biggest demographics for WoW were bachelors 25-30 years old who live alone. The most ideal group of players who can raid ... they live alone, have good income, free nights. But even for them modern online FPS or MOBA games offer more than old school MMORPG ala WoW.

The community side of MMOs has big potential, but the content format is 10-15 years old and does not measure up to other options we have available.

Short, concise, spells out the truth in a cute, easily digestible morsel, would recommend again +1

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nice post btw,

On the one hand, MMOs are well, MASSIVE.. huge world, huge levels, in theory, these are supposed to take you quite a while to get through, they don't, so you finish the hard to build content too fast. And then hit an end game for too long.


I think this is part of the problem. A better way has to be found to utilize exist content than the current model. Sandbox type setting I fully agree with, and this should be the approach to end game, you should be able to in a sense build your own little empire that affects the world around you.

1. Levelling - they should cap it earlier than they design, find ways to stall you. Long to level games were not popular, wow showed easy to level fast to progress made the game hugely popular .. problem with that model is that you burn through content too fast and are at end game in no time

Propose: the more you play the slower you level. You don't want a person who only has an hour to play a day or 2 hrs a week to never progress, ecause you've slowed down levelling fo the guy who's clocking in 14 hrs per day. SwToR was not a bad game, it took much longer than wow to level but people burned through the content because they mainly skipped the videos, hit end game far sooner in much greater numbers than the dev team had estimated, people got bored, and the 5 mil following dwindled to less than a million in the 2 months it took for their next raid to come out, but by that time, the disappointemnt of the fans had turned hwaat had been only 2 months earlier the most exciting experience to hit th emmo marke tsince wow, to be slated as the most negative experience.

I've thought, that if levelling was not controlled by exp only, what if it was a combo of exp and actually time. No one can pass level x till after y hours.

Doens't mean you have nothing to do when you can't level, you can be exploring the world, improving your gear for that level range in BGs and arenas and instances - improving your gold, finding out more about the world, the zone and the environment. It allows those who have 1 hr to play to not necesarily be far behind those who have 14 hrs to play, but 14 hr player would have advantages over 1 hr player if not in level at least in gear and other htings.

2. Dynamic quests, and dynamic impact. I agree with you here totally, find ways to allow things to be dynamic, what can you be doing when you can't grow any further? establish your power base or your trading empire etc, menas to do this. imagine if you could gain political power? or lead intelligence services? or be in charge of the bank? build a city or become it's mayor? take over territories as a Filed Marshal or General amongst your peers.

Other ways of rewarding other than hey, i've got phine loot.. all need to be considerations.


WoW and SwTOR... how different it would have been.. Can't level any more today because of the level cap? not interested in bolstering your toon or bolsetered him all you can for that level? done all the quests? not interested in working towards being a Lord, or rising in the army ranks trhough BGs or securing your economic foothold or getting a house? how about start levelling another alt to get to where your current character is?

Game must also have some seroiusly good rewards for having more than one toon, making a lot of things easier.. it always helps to have another toon with different professions. What if your other toon can serve as a companion to accompnay you and you can switch control whiles playing to the main toon or other companions?

So much you can do, these guys just don't think enough out of the box, and they've had years to do it, with only slight improvements. if my character could learn another class specialization while waiting for the level cap to ise again in the next x hours?

I couldn't even invent a system of ability levls, so although XP has capped the level i'm at, killing stuff and doing quests will gain xp that improves my abilities power and effects. ther is always some form of character development i can be engaged in.

Well well, what have we here. Took a poster who looked -completely- like an absolute blind Blizz fanboy who'll crusade in their defense at every turn, & turned him around/revealed him to actually be someone sensible, that is able to realize the obvious earth-shattering difference sandboxy dynamic features & content design is capable of bringing a themepark mmo, especially wow given that it's the biggest, & one of the most beautifully polished ones, out there, and has been, & will be, for a while.. Color me surprised..! ;p

I agree w/ most of the salient points you made in that last post there, it's simple really, if wanting to finally fix the fundamental themepark boredom issues facing wow (among other games), I've already thought over (the course of years..) several dozen solutions that keep in touch with the underlying circumstance of wow's already-existing, sensitive playerbase so the changes & additions don't unhinge the very fabric of wow's intrinsic charm & unique vision, the game's existing strengths that 7m people are still clinging to and (assumingly) appreciating.., here they are (in-depth timeline background to be found in link in my sig) :

›› (1) Ironman & 'Challenge Leveling/Exploration' Game Integration w/ +JP/Power-Up's/QuestGear/BonusSatchels/Achievements
›› (2) Increased Item Power from Older Dungeons & Raids w/ Tie-In to Hard Mode Items/Triggers for Higher iLvL+GemSockets
›› (3) Removal of Most Quests' Level Requirement & Addition of Level Requirements (or Dynamic Scaling) On Quest Rewards
›› (4) Use of Player Spells/Increased Interactivity w/ World Objects as Rituals/Crafting/Other as Variety from Combat Only
›› (5) Transmogrification-Integrated Gear Name/FlavorText Customization w/ Developer-Set Custom Name/Text Pool
›› (6) [AL][JC][BS][SC][EC][TL][LW]-Relootable Mobs : Salvaging Feature for Gear-Crafting Professions
›› (7) Further Gameplay Differences Between Server Types & New Server Type : 'Challenge' Realms..
›› (8) Items : 'Horadric-Cube-like' Item Fusion System (Ultimate Inventory Space Solution)
›› (9) Archeology-Integrated Custom Player Buildings in World Ruins/Mini-Dungeons
›› (10) Dynamic Questing/Randomized Events & Randomized Dungeon/Raid Layouts
›› (11) Multiple Spell Interaction Effects With Self & With Other Classes/Specs
›› (12) Instance Occupation Persistence/Faction Warfare Dungeon Mode
›› (13) Crafting Redesign : 1-450 (Profitability/Materials/Item Viability)
›› (14) Decreased Player CC Durations/CC Attribute-Driven Redesign
›› (15) Down-Scaling High-Level Raids/Dungeons/BGs/Scenarios
›› (16) Reforging Redesign : -CoreStat/-CombatRating & +Proc
›› (17) Player Adventurer Guardian/Minion Self-Sidekicking
›› (18) Custom Player/Guild Buildings/Housing
›› (19) Player Animation Selections 'Studio'
›› (20) [Very] Limited WoW RMAH
›› (21) RF Enabled On All Raids

›› (22) Professions : Legacy Recipes & Skill-Switching Facilitation & Mass Prospecting/Milling GUI
›› (23) Path of the Titans/Alternate Player Progression System : Paragon Levels
›› (24) AH : Non-Mail Delivery Subsystem, Partial Buy Orders, GUI Redesign
›› (25) More Roaming World Raid Bosses & 'Timeless Isle'-style areas
›› (26) Increased PvP Non-BoP/Non-BoA Rewards [+Cosmetic]
›› (27) Social : 'Appear Offline' BNE Player Status Option
›› (28) Core Player Race Model & Animations Redesign
›› (29) DK Runeforging/Starting Experience Redesign
›› (30) Professions : Alternate Skill-Up Recipes
›› (31) Up-Scaling Low-Level Raids/Dungeons
›› (32) New Class Specializations (4ᵗʰ/5ᵗʰ/Etc)
›› (33) Items : Account-Wide Storage Tab
›› (34) Extra Guild Advancement Levels
›› (35) Global Power Level Streamlining
›› (36) Party Level-Scaling/Mentoring
›› (37) Extra Guild Challenge Options
›› (38) WoW 'DotA' ARPS-Style BG's
›› (39) PvP/PvE Spectator Modes
›› (40) BG Redesign [Focus : AV]
›› (41) Challenge Mode : Raids

..Granted, these aren't all standing equal in development time/opportunity cost, feasibility of smooth integration into existing game systems, and overall potential benefit/impact to furthering dynamic gameplay. Also, some, such as (5)(13)(19)(20)(21)(22)(24)(27)(28)(29)(30)(33) which are mostly there for extra player convenience/smoother game systems (often much-needed, for nearly a decade at times) or as cosmetic customization options, rather than as revolutionary agents to stimulate actual emergent dynamic gameplay interactions between players or their environment.

"What if your other toon can serve as a companion to accompany you and you can switch control whiles playing to the main toon or other companions?" ~> It's funny you mention that, because that is precisely what I had in mind when designing Idea #(16) ^ up there in my list ;p

[DeadmanWalking]

This thread is awesome, someone asks what the main reason for the subs dropping and everyone lists the thing or things they didn't like and attribute that thing to the reason why the subs have dropped. Allow me to sum up the real reason subs are dropping after looking over 20 pages of data.

*clears throat*
"Everyone has their own reason for quitting and every single sub loss is as individual as a snow flake, each unique and yet not since they are all just snowflakes."

[pastar]

I would guess that its because the game is 10 years old and their our new shiny games out....why does super mario no longer have alot of people playing it?!?!?!?!?!?!? ITS OLD

[Mormolyce]

The age of the game drowns out any other factors in the sub numbers really.

But it's not really the graphics etc, it's the fact that the game has been around for 8 years and almost everyone who was going to try it had tried it already. Many people have played it for years and just gotten sick of it. Happens with every game.

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Ok, 20 pages and everyone thrown an opinion about why is losing...the same excuses.."people move on", "it is old game", e.t.c. I just know(Blizzard said) that in Mist of Pandaria they lost almost 1/4 of the playerbase. There were always people who leave from the game and people who come...but this last period there was a mass exodus.

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

It's the downward leg of the parabola. Pretty much every game follows the same pattern, just on a much smaller scale to WoW.

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2 Things.

1. The difficultly to get raid ready and do even flex takes FAR too long at the moment.

I got Flex raid ready in 3 weeks on a fresh 90, and I was playing it casually among my other alts.

[MMKing]

The game is old.

Without completely re-designing the game, even possibly throwing out all the software developed up to this point. Warcraft MMO as we know it will inevitably decline to the point where further development is no longer profitable. In the very end, it's not unlikely they will unlock Classic, TBC, WOTLK, Cata, MOP servers as the last spike in sub count before closing down all but the bare essential server maintenance. Then they will leave the game running until the sub count is no longer able to pay for the servers.

Arguments can be made that TBC, Classic and WOTLK being the golden years. You can also say what they did right during that time. But the game philosophy of the developers at that time will not work as well today. Dramatic change is one of the things that is keeping the ship afloat, it creates illusions of new game play, but in reality there is very little change to the core of the game from one expansion to the next.

[7seti]

The game itself said it. No king can rule forever.

A more interesting question is whether there will eventually be a new "king of the MMOs" that gathers >10 million simultaneous players, or if those days are over and the MMO playerbase will remain spread out between several games.

[Planetarism]

Bad decisions are bad decisions and the worst part of all is that is almost impossible to go back cause people are already spoiled from these decisions and the community have dramatically changed because of these decisions..

So true, & by 'bad decisions' this poster is referring I presume to things like LFR, RDF, or even cross-realm BGs or flying mounts/arenas(!) before that, all of which have contributed to some measure of playerbase social desensitization, reduced sense of belonging & actually caring about their gameplay. Even if Blizz wanted to remove those features, it's too late now. There'd be tons of players coming back, but waaay more actually quitting suddenly, this being the proverbial nail in the coffin on their late disenchantment with the state of the game. Indeed, for every sensible detractor to these accommodating, casual play convenience tools that make the gameworld 'smaller', there's a dozen people to be found who live & die by these features, that were born & raised spoiled w/ the game working this way, and taking that away from them would be catastrophic to their continued stay.

There are significant differences between a full sandbox or 'sandpark' game, & a sandboxy themepark - WoW would benefit enormously from becoming a lot more of the latter than the near-full themepark it is now, but ironically enough, would not benefit as much from trying to be an actual sandbox or nearly such. In fact the latter wouldn't even be feasible, from a technical, financial, even legal (shareholders etc) point of view - this is exactly what happened with Star Wars Galaxies several years ago, what they call the 'Pre-CU disaster' (in reverse, of course - they had basically a sandbox design, & because WoW's themepark got SO explosively successful in 2004-2005, recklessly turned their game around to be a cheapened themepark). If they did that with WoW, turn a full themepark and its millions of subscribers relatively content with the current state of affairs, into a complete sandbox, that'd be just as irresponsible and backstabby as the SW:G Pre-CU failed moneygrubbing gambit, no matter how gloriously more dynamic & engaging the non-static gameplay naturally emergent from sandbox content is.

See that's what I mean when I emphasize there are always ways to make emergent dynamic gameplay adjustments to a themepark design while not damaging/removing what is already existing, so fewer people complain, you didn't throw the baby w/ the bathwater to implement the sandboxy features. This touches upon what Ravenmoon said about 'raising an empire' etc, that type of play is absolutely engaging riotous fun and yet, just has a really hard time being realistically, holistically integrated into the aged systems of an old classic themepark like WoW. This may understandably seem terse of me to say or contradictory to what I'd always been advocating, but it's important because throughout the last decade in the reign of the themepark design in MMO space, time & again some very well-intentioned people have suggested that devs implement such radical sandbox features out & out, and it is unfortunately those outlandish suggestions that have emboldened dev teams to lump all dynamic, undirected, emergent content design into the same "unrealistic, out of touch with the 95% rest of themeparks' Halo/CoD-type playerbase" basket, thus leaving no room for more moderate steps in emergent sandbox gameplay to have any chance at the development table.

Actual empire-building & permanent or even mid-term temporary political power shifts/NPC disappearances just doesn't mesh with what the devs & executives have had in mind for the core design of this game, for a long time. So you have to find ways to implement some fun stuff to do, or different ways to do existing stuff, that won't clash, but to the contrary, that will harmoniously meshwith the existing core vision for how the game's themepark systems have always functioned.

For example, one of the ways I envisage dealing with the "..So I'm finally max-level.. what now? I mean, I was having so much stimulation, so much fun every level I was gaining, always a new spell/talent/glyph here, new items/power/feature there, and now, I'm just resigned to a much slower, repetitive gear treadmill till I gouge these eyes out to static boredom..?? =/" is the following :

~> XP costs when dying, but only under certain circumstances/in certain areas.
~> XP costs to do really engaging, designed-to-be-long-cooldowns things in the game, but mostly things that are cosmetic or affect world zones, not raid readiness or pvp advantage in any fashion or else it starts becoming a 'requirement', and thus giving an unfair, unreasonable incentive to play 24/7 in order to have as much recurring XP as possible to spend on say, more powerful flasks for a raid or a temporary speed boost in a BG.
~> An even more radical, sandboxy way to handle them would be the capacity to spend XP points, or HP, on the fly, in addition to the regular mana/class resource pool costs, when casting a spell in a world zone (so it leaves endgame PvP/PvE unaffected), to have a more spectacular (mechanical & cosmetic), on-cooldown (to prevent abuse) effect.

This would allow people a balanced, non-endgame-disrupting reason to do stuff that gives them XP even though they're already max-level (losing XP would never de-level you, that's cool-sounding but against Blizz core design..I know), perhaps even by having to use an item to give the buff that enables the acquisition of such post-max XP points, an item that only works in world zones, thus sending more players out there instead of staying in capitals to wait for their queue & troll tradechat 24/7.

[chezwickcheese]

Probably the lack of end game innovation, boring questing design and outdated Tank/DPS/Healer combat

[Whidbey]

Hiring Jay Mohr every year to host Blizzcon, and getting a formerly punk, emo band to play this year. That is why ti's dropping.

[Mirishka]

imo, the game just looks and feels dated.

Compare it to all the more recent games, what's WoW missing? - it looks OLD .. but is it the vintage kind of old wine feel to you? or is it more like old people's home old feel?

imo, do a WoW 2, wrap up this one in the next 2-3 years and relaunch the game and this time with an engine they can upgrade.. a more long term vision.

I'm not sure if any amount of tweaking would make a difference... do you know of anything blizzard could do to attract your friends that quit?

I imagine the countless, redundant topics about WOW subs probably contributes. /eyeroll

There are many active topics about this already. Not sure why you felt the need to contribute another, aside from feeling the need to say that you think WoW has bad graphics. Which you could have easily done in one of the many topics about WoW's graphics.

[Mormolyce]

Hiring Jay Mohr every year to host Blizzcon, and getting a formerly punk, emo band to play this year. That is why ti's dropping.

Hahah... wait that is a joke right?

- - - Updated - - -

So true, & by 'bad decisions' this poster is referring I presume to things like LFR, RDF, or even cross-realm BGs or flying mounts/arenas

There are all good additions to the game, people just fused nostalgia glasses to their heads with molten ignorance.

[spoon77]

I quit because it’s not the same game I signed up for in 2005. I prefer the days when instances only had one difficulty level and progression was teamwork over weeks/months to reach a brand new boss, not spending months killing the same bosses over and over again on multiple difficulty levels.

Saying that, those days are gone, players like me are an old breed, and they did what they was probably the best for the game now -- but it’s not really for me anymore.

[Deshow]

imo, the game just looks and feels dated.

Compare it to all the more recent games, what's WoW missing? - it looks OLD .. but is it the vintage kind of old wine feel to you? or is it more like old people's home old feel?

imo, do a WoW 2, wrap up this one in the next 2-3 years and relaunch the game and this time with an engine they can upgrade.. a more long term vision.

I'm not sure if any amount of tweaking would make a difference... do you know of anything blizzard could do to attract your friends that quit?

Are you serious? Again with this argument? Has anyone seen minecraft? Blizzard has made wow in such a way that it could survive an infinite amount of years. Hell even if we get to a point where quantem computing is available to the consumer market and most games happen inside your head they could still keep the game afloat with the latest and greatest tech. The only reason blizzard doesnt always update shit. Is because people like it how it is for now. So they take things piece by piece.

The games age has nothing to do with its sub drop . Anyone who thinks that is ignorant to the fact that no one likes the Asian theme in a western fantasy mmo. Also the way the panderan were portrayed made the game feel more childish and immature. It felt like I was playing through a disney cartoon(ironic I know).

[spekkiebig]

Primairy reason for dropping subs is fatigue with the genre and more competition that targets the casual/pvp players who dont care about quality pve content.
As long as there is no worthy competitor when it comes to (pve) content wow will keep having a lot of subs, the biggest problem is the console generation thats active now, they dont own a pc and they shun games that have a learning curve and need more then a small attention span.