Question: is wow population really low?

[Saucerian]

People are subbed but activity does seem very low.

I bet it has much to do with the slow trickle of utterly bare-bones non-compelling "story" quests in Broken Shore.

Bliz was wise to finally enable flight; playing alts is the only thing retaining me at the moment.

[rda]

First: It really isn't. You will only know a couple of 1000 people at most in this game, you will never meet anyone else. It doesn't change for you if there are 100.000 people playing daily or 10.000.000 people playing.

I gave you an example with PVP. We are already in the numbers where the population is so small, you are forced to play in ways you didn't have to before. You can no longer experiment with the setup (because there are few people playing), and very, very soon in terms of ratings all your fights are against the the same few teams (because there are few people playing again).

[Saucerian]

I can also tell players are bored by all the phony expansion rumors.

[MrLachyG]

The last earnings call they sad WOW is only doing slightly better then WOd was at the same period. At the same period Wod was estimated at about 3 million subs , this was after they had shed over 5 million subs the first couple months after WOD had been released. At the end of WOD there was a estimated 2.5-3 million subs but we wouldnt know because after the largest loss of players in the games history, Blizzard decided to no longer release the info.

The game is not in a good state and after the fiasco that is the 7.2 launch I would guess the game is now worse off then it was at the end of WOD.

Why are you so obsessed with sub numbers?

[Kakera]

I did make a better argument than that if you'd bother to read it. I already explained exactly what I would do: Change the difficulty curve (and the gear curve) to be more consistent and not have these massive jumps, and stop offering the same content on so many difficulty levels so people have to talk to each other to see certain things. That's a very concrete suggestion intended to increase immersion, community interaction, make the game more welcoming to new players and pose harder challenge and more exploration for those who have been here longer.

Also, the whole notion that I can only think Y is better than X out of ignorance is absurd. To like something is my personal, subjective opinion. If I can explain why I like it beyond just saying I like it, and I can, it's not nostalgia, nor is it ignorance.

So your only response to my questions are "better difficulty curve". Wow. That's... And you expect me to actually reply to you? Well, enjoy waiting on that perfect game my dude! The rest of the real gamers will be having fun playing them instead of complaining about them.

And for the record everything you've mentioned has been achieved in some form or another in other MMOs. If you weren't so blinded by WoW 1.0 you'd realize just how dumb you sound by not taking a look at other MMOs, their systems, and even taking a look at WoWs current end game system.

To me it sounds like you are a casual player who has never played at a very high level in any video game you've ever played because you have a crybaby mentality. You'd rather sit here and bitch and moan about the system of the game rather than trying to master it and enjoy it. People like you will never be happy and it's the real reason why we hate you nostalgia dudes. Because of this I legitimately have 0 intention of spending even a single second more on you.

[Deleted]

Contrary to many posters here, I experienced the pre LFD times first hand, as a DPS no less.
It was NOT FUN AT ALL to spam some dumb channel for hours.

LFD is great and I do not want to miss it.

The only problem was Wrath's freelooty-ness. That basically bred the expectation of a 100% success rate and tainted the community as a whole. They tried to revert that in cata but the damage was done.

This is essentially like flying. Once you have introduced a feature, your customers become accustomed to it - and expect to keep it. Removing it won't bring back the Sense of a closer Community, it will only anger most of the casual players. Taking away choice is not the answer - the damage is done, and it won't be like it has been pre LFD/LFG.

For better or worse? Who knows ;-)

[Akka]

That is what I mean though, Akka could have explained more but chose to go the route of insulting the person instead of trying to explain

Yep. Because :

Yeah, forgive me for not wishing to waste hours trying to disprove "water isn't wet" to people who were dumb enough to make the claim in the first place. I know how pointless it is.

[Deleted]

I gave you an example with PVP. We are already in the numbers where the population is so small, you are forced to play in ways you didn't have to before. You can no longer experiment with the setup (because there are few people playing), and very, very soon in terms of ratings all your fights are against the the same few teams (because there are few people playing again).

And I already said its bullshit.
I have queues that are AT MAX 2 min long for Arena's and my Battle ground ones are seconds usually.
You're not forced to do anything, just grab a friend or 2 and play whatever you want.

The only one that is that is forcing you to do things is your self.

[rda]

And I already said its bullshit.
I have queues that are AT MAX 2 min long for Arena's and my Battle ground ones are seconds usually.
You're not forced to do anything, just grab a friend or 2 and play whatever you want.

The only one that is that is forcing you to do things is your self.

Dude, your queues being "AT MAX 2 min long" don't disprove at all what I am saying. Do you even understand what I am saying? Looks like you don't.

Try playing for ratings for a change, then we will talk.

[Teri]

People are subbed but activity does seem very low.

I bet it has much to do with the slow trickle of utterly bare-bones non-compelling "story" quests in Broken Shore.

Bliz was wise to finally enable flight; playing alts is the only thing retaining me at the moment.

I am going back for an old rep like ogri'la for the tabard instead of repeating endless WQ, maybe it's because I did too much broken shore for a while (5 exalteds with 1-2 paragon bags each). Transmog collecting becoming more fun then WQ last weeks for me.

[Drusin]

Ive recently came back to wow and I play on sarg which is an extremely populated realm (one of the highest populated) but Ive noticed that its now a medium realm and theres only like three realms that are above medium and a few medium and the rest low. Ive only seen a handful of people on the broken shore.... Is wows population really died that badly?

I've only seen a handful of people on my realm as well but I also don't look for them, and if they play the way I play it's rare you'll see me out in the world. Not because I don't do anything but because I swoop in on my flying mount, kill shit as fast as possible then fly away. If you do see me it'll only be for a few seconds, I have no reason to loiter.

[Stardrift]

the game has allways been the same, dont try to claim "none of this new stuff is content" when it is the exact same, and more stuff we had before...
there is tons of goals in legion
get the reps to exalted
get to X ilvl
beat Y raid
get the Z acheivment for doing M+
max out your artifact

So very fun and full of content worth doing indeed.

Wait. WQs don't give anything good anymore and the reputations are useless to do as they provide no rewards that aren't toys. And the raids have been drawn out significantly longer than need be, as everyone and their dog has gotten to their desired ilvl a month ago. And my artifact! How could I forget my artifact, the thing that's meant to last the entirety of the expansion. So... Much.. To do..

[FelPlague]

So very fun and full of content worth doing indeed.

Wait. WQs don't give anything good anymore and the reputations are useless to do as they provide no rewards that aren't toys. And the raids have been drawn out significantly longer than need be, as everyone and their dog has gotten to their desired ilvl a month ago. And my artifact! How could I forget my artifact, the thing that's meant to last the entirety of the expansion. So... Much.. To do..

WQ give legendaries, ap, and chance at titanforged gear. they also give mounts not just toys
lol really? nighthold hasent even been out 4 months...
and yeah your artifact will last the entirety of the expansion, or have you somehow defied time and space and finished it?

[A dot Ham]

Warcraft realms shows wow pop is at or near record lows. That's all we have.

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weekly...hp?serverid=-1

We can definitely say that CONTENT was NOT the solution for WoW. The people who were clamoring that if they just had more content, the game would be better are CLEARLY 100% wrong. All the things to do in Legion and the numbers are as bad as WoD.

I still assert that the KEY to a successful MMO is an in-game community. Blizzard has slaughtered the in-game community with loads of antisocial features. Ripping the antisocial aspects out of the game and rebuilding the community is the answer. But Blizzard absolutely refuses to do it.

Your graph shows player activity on the rise AND higher than last year in June, and the new content patch isn't even out yet. Not only that... but that is all of 6 months of data. Your graph shows exactly what blizzard has been talking about for years now, that player engagement in cyclical... we are currently coming out of lull and the rise and what will inevitably be a subsequent peak will coincide with the release of ToS.

[Phyrce]

Warcraft realms shows wow pop is at or near record lows. That's all we have.


We can definitely say that CONTENT was NOT the solution for WoW. The people who were clamoring that if they just had more content, the game would be better are CLEARLY 100% wrong. All the things to do in Legion and the numbers are as bad as WoD.

I still assert that the KEY to a successful MMO is an in-game community. Blizzard has slaughtered the in-game community with loads of antisocial features. Ripping the antisocial aspects out of the game and rebuilding the community is the answer. But Blizzard absolutely refuses to do it.

Content was fine, and a welcome addition. The content is the only thing saving this expansion. The problem is the Diablo team and their treadmill of AP (Paragon levels) and time gated content thats frustratingly easy to complete.

[Spacewalrus2010]

They tried to mask a disaster with cute words?
"Performance in prior expansion" was negative, they lost a percentage of players. In Legion they still lost a bunch of players in Q2, but less % than they did in WoD for obvious reasons (less people playing = less people quitting).

I guess we got two different ideas of a disaster. Keeping/increasing sub count is not exactly a bad thing. I also have no expectations of the subs getting anywhere near what they originally were, but apparently you do. So there's that.

Anyways, you make it seem as though they are trying to fool you with the "mask a disasters with cute words" comment. How is "slightly ahead of prior expansion" anything but a cut and dry explanation without actually getting into the numbers themselves?

[rda]

Your graph shows player activity on the rise AND higher than last year in June, and the new content patch isn't even out yet. Not only that... but that is all of 6 months of data. Your graph shows exactly what blizzard has been talking about for years now, that player engagement in cyclical... we are currently coming out of lull and the rise and what will inevitably be a subsequent peak will coincide with the release of ToS.

They only started talking about player engagement being "cyclical" after WoD. Because it wasn't much "cyclical" before. The huge drop-offs right after the initial peak of interest at the start of an expansion / patch more or less only started with WoD. Yes, for real. They were much, much tamer in MoP (about 3x slower / shallower) and non-existent before MoP. It used to be slow up or at most slow down without big peaks. Go figure...

It's the disaster of WoD that made this "cyclical" thing happen. People got so disgusted that they decided they aren't going to wait any longer and just quit. That carried to all further patches and to Legion. Few believe in Blizzard enough to stay through rough times anymore, something like half of the players just leave and that proportion is perhaps growing.

The "it's cyclical" is really "we failed so hard that a big number or people went cyclical".

[rda]

I remember in wrath them using the cyclical excuse

I don't think that ever happened. If you have a link, please post it. The number of players who were unsubbing after completing big releases of content was always indescernible amongst the regular noise of just people coming and leaving normally - up until WoD. So maybe they said something like "well, some people unsub and resub", but if they actually used that as an excuse, that was an excuse for a very, very mild and slow decline which is completely unlike the declines we are seeing with WoD and Legion.

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Didn't somebody important in blizz let slip that there were 10mil active players in wow in the beginning of legion?

This was taken back by Blizzard, they said that the reporter made things up.

Legion didn't have 10 mil in the beginning. (LOL)

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How is "slightly ahead of prior expansion" anything but a cut and dry explanation without actually getting into the numbers themselves?

For example, they might have meant that Legion is losing subs at a slower rate than WoD.

[Inukenshin]

The reason it feels like that is because of sharding. It feels like they reduced the maximum number of people you can have in a single area/shard. You start getting too many people in one shard and they get phased to a different shard. It's actually really annoying but it "improves performance" for the budget servers they have these days.

[Spacewalrus2010]

For example, they might have meant that Legion is losing subs at a slower rate than WoD.

Wouldn't you typically frame the sub count in terms of what is was previously though? I.E. doing better vs doing worse.

Don't get me wrong, I can see what you mean with what you said. Seems kind of like a "glass half full/empty" situation to me is all. The original person I was responding made it seem like they were on the edge of lying.

In other words, if we had three expansions in a row. The first grabbed 5 million subs, the second grabbed 8 million. I'd find it a lot more suspicious if they said "this third expansion is slightly ahead of our first one" without mention of the second.