Frost Mage Artifact Intro, Vodka Done Raiding, Blue Posts, Zarhym Leaves Blizzard

[ElDoorO]

</puts on rose colored glasses>
The reason that WoW lost so many subs is that other companies got their shit together and released a non-MMORPG that a good chunk of WoW players actually wanted. They play WoW since it was and still is a good game, but it wasn't the kind of game they really wanted. WoW is now just trimming down to its core players who really do want to play MMORPGs.

I'm sorry but I can't just believe that that many *millions* went to other games purely because they wanted a change in scenery and it's *purely* a coincidence it happened right after Wrath and ONLY went Cata landed. I also don't find it to be a coincidence that the numbers *increased* when MoP came out and they abandoned the difficulty they fought for in Cata. Case in point: More people returned at the last patch during Cata when they made catchup gear, LFR, and overall made the game easier.

From what I'm seeing -- every time they try to make things less accessible beyond the elite stuff (e.g. Mythic now, Heroic then) we see a significant drop (millions) in subscription count.

I do not believe this is a coincidence like you do.

You may think I have rose colored glasses but I think you're in denial about the causes.

[barackohmama]

Sad to see Zaryhm move on. Wish him the best. Try reporting to a job 11 years in a row where you have deviants attacking your psyche daily. Not the easiest task. And he braved that traffic daily. I think he'll do just fine - if he doesn't have PTSD from dealing with all the talking monkeys through the years.

Be easy on him, he wasn't in charge of anything, just another guy doing their job.

What do you mean? Unless you talk about personal attacks, the guys should should be able to distinguish between his professional role and not take stuff personal. You cant blame the community for this.

[Rihn]

I'll start off with: I think Zarhym is an arrogant asshole. While I disagree passionately about the direction they are taking while and feel they have forgotten what made them popular, I find it difficult to believe that someone as elevated as Zarhym would be "fired", in the traditional sense, from Blizzard.

At most he might have been let go with a severance package. I might venture a guess that he might have been given "direction" and was given a choice: Fall into the new fold or leave with severance.

Saying WoW is on its death throes is not an unreasonable thing to say. Historically, MMO games tend to say online for quite sometime with no real comeback. UO -> EQ -> WoW -> ??

For those who are too young to remember or joined MMO's late: Before World of Warcraft -- there was Ultima Online, Everquest, and a few others that I can't seem to remember playing. Anyways, pre-WoW games required a serious grind. In comes Vanilla WoW and it's for filthy casuals, who the fuck would play that shit? There was no "buying" wood, you took your shit to a tree and got your skill up for wood to work on your BS which also required mining and a lot of other shit that took a lot of grinding. Through Wrath it got more and more casual, and picking up more and more people. In comes Cata and they mysteriously start losing millions of people when it gets harder for everyone.

My point is: Casuals *subsidize* the game for the hardcore folks. The hardcore folks wanted more content made just for them at the expense of the casuals. What did you think would happen?

There are only a few games that have lived quite a long time -- Counter Strike is one of them. So yes, "stale" games can last quite a long time in a competitive state so long as things are balanced and fair.

I think WoW made the mistake of making raiding too large for Mythic. I understand *why* they did it -- I just think it was a mistake. 20 people is not very flexible for a difficulty that requires *gear* to progress. If, however, they normalized gear on Mythic so anyone that came in was given BiS items, I think things would have been better. Personally I think raiding could be turned into something better if gear wasn't involved and instead xmog, mounts, pets, and public rankings for kills were in place. It would also mean that you can't farm Mythics in the future, leaving items obtained from it only for those that put in the effort. Just my opinion that probably several million will disagree with.

I also think Blizzard lost focus. They forgot that to run current content requires leveling and farming for fresh blood to even *begin* raiding. So, for instance, if I wanted my wife to raid -- I'd have to get her toon to 85 (or 100 now), gear her up through dungeon after dungeon, LFR (once a week), and THEN we can have another healer. In the meantime my group is stuck with a thumb up its ass waiting on RNG to give her gear so we can continue. Now -- imagine she's not my wife and lives alone with cats. How easy would it be to get disenchanted of WoW by looking at all the grind ahead with only a simple promise of this alleged raiding you hear about but have never experienced? Fresh blood is needed. Imagine if Counter Strike did this. New players start with $0 and only a knife. It wouldn't go so well. You HAVE to take into consideration new blood for the game to remain healthy.

Just my $0.02 that no one asked for...

Hate to be that guy, but THIS! I agree 100%

I got married 3 years ago, and now we have 3 children. I recently joined again, after 3 1/2 yeats afk, and the game has indeed changed. I was a raider, now I'm a casual only doing bgs and arena. And I gladly pay the monthly fee. Nostalgia is a factor, but the game also give me a feeling of grind, progression etc. Since i play less now compared to before.

[Cazmosis]

Method, Paragon, Vodka (who?), Zeraphym (who?). These things don't matter to me. Played WoW this morning. Gonna raid a bit tonight. Good times

[Spotnick]

All specs are out now, so get a beta and get you everyday players generating some good feedback Blizzard.

Brewmaster Monks say hi.

[AriochIV]

Zarhym constantly came across as an arrogant prick who personified Blizzard's contempt for their players. I won't miss him.

[Kakera]

lmao liek omg srsly.

You should probably kill yourself

I'm just stating an objective truth. I don't care that you love world of facebook. You do you booboo. Just don't get salty when someone points out your favorite casual cruise liner has hit the reef.

Infracted

Haha you got banned. Omg liek omg srsly?!?!?! Great to see I was right though you're adorable. <3

[Deleted]

Too long casts for frost mages... If all others have instnats primarily.

Frostbolt.. with haste ok.. But Ebonbolt and Glacial Spike...3,5 and 3 sec? Frost need some mechanic with reduc cast time for this 2 abilities.

Or useless at pvp.

[Shudder]

Haha you got banned. Omg liek omg srsly?!?!?! Great to see I was right though you're adorable. <3

The fact that you're banned made me laugh at this.

[Somarlane]

Blizzard missed a golden opportunity for a "Azmodank meme" skin.

[ElDoorO]

It's funny to think that one could spin a raiding guild "announcing" they're not raiding as "WoW is dying!" and I'm sitting here thinking, "Who's Vokda?" Thanks to branding/marketing you'd be hard pressed to mistake the only "raiding guilds" that mattered were Paragon or Method.

I think it's important to note -- several raiding guilds have had similar announcements.

For those saying "but I'm still having a good time" -- sure you are -- the problem isn't just "one or two" people. It's the snowball effect. When most of your RealID isn't on, eventually you sign on less because there isn't much to do with your friends. As that dwindles, so does your activity in the game and eventually you.

There are STILL people playing UO yet I don't know a *single* person who would call UO "alive". If 1k players were playing WoW, I don't believe I would call it "alive". For those who want a hard line for when it's dead: When no new content will come out. Well, let's take a look at MoP -> WoD -> Legion. Over a year of SoO, very little *content* in Legion, over a year of HFC, and 2 raid tiers (depending on which CM you ask and which PR gun they run it through). From what I can tell -- they are moving people to different games internally and WoW isn't holding very well. What do I base this from? How many millions played at the peak of Wrath? What and when was their last report for how many played? The number has dropped low enough they don't even report it anymore. They are embarrassed.

For those of us who are gamers who play a wide spectrum of games and have done so for nearly two decades now, we've seen these patterns before. We know this is what happens before shit gets bad.

And for those who wonder why people who don't play care: Maybe we'd LOVE to come back and play... if it had anything to interest us again. I'm not one who can enjoy 13 months of the same raid, several times per week. Maybe we're following progression of Legion so we know if it'll be of interest. MMO-C is the main place that we can talk about it. WoW forums on Blizzard's site, contrary to their other games, require a subscription to contribute to threads instead of simply owning the game. In this method, they lack interest in those that quit and just hope the addiction will make them come back again one day arbitrarily.

Personally, about the only thing that *might* interest me is PvP anymore. From flying to Mythic raiding -- the fucked it up 99 ways from Sunday but hey, that's just me... apparently many millions of people quit as well but I won't know their reasons but I doubt I'm alone, I may not be the majority but I'm not alone.

[Slappyjoe]

Oh, it's the typical blizz-fanboy

"You don't care why are you here?"

lol, that never gets old -- keep it up bro. I've been arguing with people that've made that exact statement for the last 10 years.

I love WoW, but the WoW i loved for more than a decade, the WoW THE MAJORITY of us loved and had great unforgettable memories in -- for YEARS -- is now LONG gone, and I still DO care and I still DO want it back and I'd LOVE to return to those glory days again, but Blizzard has changed, the people have changed, the game has changed.

People like you, delusional, defensive kids. Urgghhh, Leave. I'm just sick of it. You've buried this game and now you're preventing anyone from criticising it's corpse, well done.

Delusional and defensive? I didn't even state any sort of opinion about the game. I just said you're being a childish prick for no reason, which is undeniably true. I know you think you're somehow fighting to bring the game back to whatever magical place you think you want by yelling at people with different opinions than your own, but instead you just look ridiculous.

[buddah13]

Wonder if this expac will hit it out of the park , many raiding guilds are leaving, long time players cycling out