Opinion: my reason of WoW's recent demise and subscription dwindling

[Ermelloth]

I am going to present here my own version of "what went wrong" and why WoW lost so many subscriptions recently. As well as my conclusion, what needs to be done / fixed in next expansions.

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I think, that the worst thing happened to WoW in last 3-4 years and the main reason which, I believe, resulted in loss of subs and people getting disappointed - Blizzard dumbing down the game. I believe, that it's dumbing the game down which was responsible for removal of so many features and, as a result, a lot of niche in-game activities, customization options and extra features many players actually enjoyed.

Why did they start to dumb the game down in first place? I believe, mostly for trying to make it appealing for younger players and kids. But they failed to realize, that RPG is not a children-friendly game genre and will never be.

Even if there are and were exceptions - all the 12-year-old ones who started playing WoW once, are already adults. And if you want new players to join, it's much more likely that those below 16 will not understand WoW and find it worthy the time. Modern kids prefer shooters, games with emphasize on 3D effects, etc, while spending extra time on thoroughly reading questlines, going deep into lore aspects, etc... you understand me, right? As I said - RPG is not a kids friendly genre. So dumbing the game down in order to make it more appealing for children was a fail.

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Now, to the big list of things which got dumbed down lately. Take WoD, for example:

Professions - gone; with combat benefits from each profession removed, all professions (except Engineering) became absolutely useless for those people who don't raid (PvP'ers and casual players). All is based around daily cooldowns; for instance, if I am a player interested in economic aspects of the game and I invest more game time into gaining profit, I still can't best my potential competitors, cause I am limited by a daily cooldown....

Character customization - nearly gone; for max-level gear most socket slots were removed, reforging removed. There are nearly no enchants, no leg armor, no inscriptions, no belt buckles, weapon chains, etc. for level-relevant gear. Nothing.

Gathering - nearly gone (needed again only in 6.2 due to Felblight, but it's too late). Garrison gave everything and even more than was needed for more than half a year before 6.2 was introduced. People abandoned their gatherers.

F***ing Garrison handling everything for free, with minimal thought and effort.

Hunt for rare items - lost any purpose due to Salvage Yard; Take transmog items, for example - these lost most more than half of their AH value and therefore any reason to spend time farming them, since Salvage Yard handles the rarest of items for free, based just on stupid luck. Teebu's Blazing Longsword, for example, which used to be super rare and cost 50-75k, now hardly costs 5k due to Salvage Yard interference and all AHs are flooded with such items.

Items below max level in general - Due to relatively cheap heirlooms covering 2/3 of what players can wear already, all BoE items / dungeon items / etc. below the max level became nearly useless. Won a pair of legs in dungeon? Throw away in a moment, heirloom ones are still better thus grant XP. Got a blue BoE necklace dropped in dungeon, or even an epic one?? Won't sell - why, there is a cheap heirloom growing with character. Throw away again.

World PvP - nearly gone. Reason - people have everything in garrisons, they don't need to gather anything, level professions, etc,. so they sit there and queue to dungeons / raids from Garrison, in absolute safety 24/7. Cities are filled with lvl 100 overpowered guards everywhere, enhanced with Stealth detecting abilities, and flying patrol which dismounts any attackers if they fly too low.

Poor battle pet content... In comparison to MoP, which introduced and developed this game feature, WoD offers a lot less stuff related to pet battles. And it's a shame - at once something good and fun was added, so give it more resources! These new pets in Tanaan were pathetic, so easily beatable. Garrison daily posed some challenge? Very well, let's listen to few crybabies on forums and dumb it to nonsense, so a single pet can beat all three.

Primitive and ridiculous lore events and cutscenes - some episodes of WoD were stomach churning to watch for educated adult players. Pathetic Yrel character, becoming Exarch in literally no time from nothing, and so on... What, Metzen can't create something worthy and logical anymore??

You see, how much interesting stuff, that players used to do and spend their time on, was completely erased from the game just in one expansion!


So, what remained?


Log in, do the garrison stuff, then (depending if you PvP or PvE) queue to LFR / random BG / Ashran, or go into Normal / HC / etc. dungeon or raid.

Play few Arena games, if you're lucky to be Alliance (Horde and finding Arena partners - there is a little problem you've got right now).

Maybe do few daily quests in Tanaan if you still need some raiding items / Apexis. And that's it.

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So, what needs to be done to help the situation??

First of all, bring all the aforementioned back.

Most of loyal subs who still play are adults. You can bring former players back, which are most likely to be adults as well. So, start thinking about making the game challenging and complicated again, in order to attract customers of relevant age. Stop thinking of 12-year-olds and design the game to be friendly to them: it is not your main playerbase.

P.S. And, for God's sake, wipe the goddamn SALVAGE YARD from existence.

[Deleted]

What demise? Did i miss sthg? It is totally clear that a 10 year old game is in decline. But there was no demise.

[Xeones]

Every time someone says "dumbing down" I just sigh.

Just say your reasons don't bold a line that has been so over used it basically means nothing.

[Ermelloth]

Just say your reasons don't bold a line that has been so over used it basically means nothing.

I listed about 8 game features, which WoD reduced to shreds or totally removed. Things which I and a lot more people I know used to spend their time on.

P.S. Another example of game dumbed down to be more attractive to kids. Heroes of Might and Magic franchise. From glorious Heroes 3 (which is still popular after 15 years!) to horribly bugged and nearly unplayable Heroes 6 fail. "But it has cool 3d graphics". (c)

P.P.S. I don't want WoW to be PEGI-12 game, with all the consequences. At least PEGI-16. (Note - I don't mean adding some erotic features to WoW by that, I mean the complexity and content depth).

[ttak82]

Or you know, maybe the real reason could be simply: economics. (yes, not hard to figure out, right?)
Many people just dont want to pay a sub these days. Or commit lots of time to one game. Or they just stopped playing games on pcs.

[Ermelloth]

What demise? Did i miss sthg? It is totally clear that a 10 year old game is in decline. But there was no demise.

Game's age could explain the loss of 1-2 million subs at max, but not 5 or 6.

A year ago (MoP) the game was already 9 years old, which is not a big difference (9,10,11, etc.) Patch 5.4 lasted very, very long, but even during 5.4 players had way way more stuff to do and reasons to log on, than they got in WoD.

Or you know, maybe the real reason could be simply: economics. (yes, not hard to figure out, right?)
Many people just dont want to pay a sub these days. Or commit lots of time to one game. Or they just stopped playing games on pcs.

That's simply not true. Many former WoW players went to other MMOs, Dota2 and LoL. Even if these games are basically free-to-play, you still have to buy them first when you sign up and there are additional cosmetic stuff and enhancement you can get. Also, Diablo 3 and its expansion sold really well.

[Tjaz]

Thanks for you opinion, unfortunately it was so damn long.

[Ermelloth]

Thanks for you opinion, unfortunately it was do damn long.

I'm sorry for the comparison I'm going to make, but you just gave me an example of what Blizzard did to WoW cause of people who, as they thought, don't like to read (what is typical for children and young teenagers).

Assume there is a quest, which requires you to read thoroughly in order to complete it right. But what for, if today I can just go in my full heirloom to that harpy nest, just oneshot all of the mobs in 30 sec, take the outlined item (so I won't miss it for sure) and get my XP. Why even reading who are these harpies and why did they steal the item, etc.

Simplification =/= RPG. It's lethal for the genre.

[mentalass]

I am sure it's a great read and you had fun writing it, but I didn't read it as it was to long, and it is just your opinion not fact so it is meaningless.

[Ermelloth]

I'll sum it up for people who don't like reading.

The game got down the drain cause of the following key problems:

*Oversimplification of the game
*Attempt to make it appealing for kids and teenagers below 16
*Removal of many side features, like professions, character customization, etc
*Removal of RPG elements and leaning towards single-player game
*Emphasize on accessibility and raiding as key element of the game

[wladimir89]

Game is to easy.

[axell]

I listed about 8 game features, which WoD reduced to shreds or totally removed. Things which I and a lot more people I know used to spend their time on.

P.S. Another example of game dumbed down to be more attractive to kids. Heroes of Might and Magic franchise. From glorious Heroes 3 (which is still popular after 15 years!) to horribly bugged and nearly unplayable Heroes 6 fail. "But it has cool 3d graphics". (c)

P.P.S. I don't want WoW to be PEGI-12 game, with all the consequences. At least PEGI-16. (Note - I don't mean adding some erotic features to WoW by that, I mean the complexity and content depth).

The only problem with Heroes 6 is that it was bugged at launch, which is indeed shit but it has nothing to do with making it appealing to kids. Heroes 6 was actually a very good game once the bugs were resolved and the expansion launched and besides the lack of pretty town screens it was a very enjoyable and challenging game (especially on hard difficulty) and this is coming from someone who played all the heroes game except 1. So your argument is invalid.

And also stating that you need to be pegi 16 in order to have a meaningful story is incredibly naive and also extremely wrong.

[Defect]

"demise" kek

[Airath]

Most people are done with 6.2 content (or lack of it). Therefore they unsubbed until there is new content.

It's not like it's mandatory to keep subbed non stop.

Oh, and don't insult kids. They are smarter than you know.

[Ermelloth]

Oh, and don't insult kids. They are smarter than you know.

Where exactly did I insult kids?? What I meant was not "kids aren't smart" - they aren't patient.

My 11-year-old nephew takes a game, finishes it (or plays for a while) - 10 days, 3 weeks, a month maximum, then quickly gets bored of it and goes plays another. Nothing can keep him interested for a long time. This is true to 90% of kid gamers.

RPG like pre-MoP WoW requires commitment and a lot of patience, which most of kids don't have. That's why Blizzard dumbed down so many game features so players make as quickest progress as possible. Looms, garrisons, etc.

[Sunnydee]

There is no reasons or math or some illuminati. its really simple and i stated it in another thread.

Whats suprising isnt that WoW have dropped so many subs, its that it managed to keep so high numbers for such a long time.

You cant be shocked over dwindling after 10 years of a game. You should however be shocked that it's lasted this long with these numbers.

[Ermelloth]

And yet I'm telling you - I know a lot of people who would come back to WoW if the features I mentioned would return and game becomes challenging again. Despite the game is 10 year old, a lot are willing to play it, if things change.

[axell]

Where exactly did I insult kids?? I said what is their typical preference.

My 11-year-old nephew takes a game, finishes it (or plays for a while) - 10 days, 3 weeks, a month maximum, then quickly gets bored of it and goes plays another. Nothing can keep him interested for a long time. This is true to 90% of kid gamers.

RPG like pre-MoP WoW requires commitment and a lot of patience, which most of kids don't have. That's why Blizzard dumbed down so many game features so players make as quickest progress as possible. Looms, garrisons, etc.

It's not that they aren't smart - they aren't patient.

Well you do know the average age of WoW players is around 25-30ish right? Give or take a few years depending on the study. You do know that since we know this, blizzard knows it better and is not making the game in order to appeal to the demographic that does not represent it's majority of players.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/22/t...factor-page-2/
http://www.statista.com/statistics/3...w-players-age/

Also younger players can and are more commited to video games since they have fewer real life commitments ( jobs,families etc). One of the reasons blizzard is making content more and more accessible ( though that is debatable since they are constantly experimenting each expansion with mixed results each time) is to cater to their majority who as time passes have more and more commitments and cannot dedicate as much time and effort to the game.

[2hShaman]

Stats. I used to read elitistjerk to get the optimal breakpoints and combination of secondary stats.
There were breakpoints to get an extra percent or so dps.

Now...

[Ermelloth]

You do know that since we know this, blizzard knows it better and is not making the game in order to appeal to the demographic that does not represent it's majority of players.

I'm not sure, sadly. Look what another player has just written in topic above "Why WoD is so hated"? Quoting:

Doomhammer shows up once to scream loot and pillage, then shows up again to tell blackhand its wrong to loot and pillage and die. masterful storytelling. truly a rollercoaster tale of a moral crisis that shook a man to his core.

Stuff like this is hardly appealing for 25-30 year playerbase. And yet they continue making "dumb and dumber" cinematics and introducing stupid characters like Yrel.