1.3 million sub drop

[Hubbl3]

Can everybody stop using the old game argument? It makes no sense. No business just says "okay now that we have worked for 9 years.. its time to kill our business off." Things can adapt, blizz needs to adapt. They need to change the game so it can compete in this new era of gaming.. It is disrespectful to all their paying customers that they don't.

I feel quite offended everytime I hear about titan tbh. I have paid to play wow for almost two years now + I have spent hours in this game. I wouldn't be satisfied with any kind of annual pass thing. I wouldn't be satisfied even if they PAID me to switch to titan. It is not okay that they took our money + hours and now they are working on the next big thing. It will keep me and a lot of people that I have discussed this topic from playing any blizzard game ever if titan is not just wow2.

Yes, by making NEW THINGS. NO company continues to sell the same product with new paitings for 100 years. And this is what WoW is. The SAME thing with new colors every expansion. The SAME game since 2004. New stories, talents, raids, dungeons, quests, arenas, etc. don't change the core of the game. Even housing or something would not change anything. It's just another thing to do while doing the same stuff as 2004. THAT is the "problem". This is why a game gets old. This is not fixable by any amount of new content. This is only fixable by a completely new core gameplay. A completely new game!

Oh, and when you now tell me that I don't know... cars are the same since 100 yers and still people buy them I will break your face.

[dacoolist]

I'm glad this thread has reached this high of a number is such a small amount of time.

-> Funny how many posters who SHOULDN'T even be here posting non-constructive points posting about "THEM GOOD OL TIMES" - Yeah.. I was there.. They weren't good. Fact is: Games old - get over it. Leave already

[Deleted]

I disagree. Literally every single MMO I've tried in the past two years outside of WoW and Guild Wars has absurdly clunky combat. That's one thing nobody has managed to match up to WoW in. I can't play games that 'feel' bad to play. It irritates the hell out of me. WoW is smooth as butter.

That's true, wow has achieved a level of smoothness in their gameplay that is far far ahead anything else.

Thing is fluid gameplay isn't everything in a game.
Look I started playing gw2 recently. The fights are actually fun, and I don't mean huge boss fights, I mean every single mob. It's active, dynamic, you have to stay on your toes or you simply get killed... you know, fun.
Graphics are better, the environment is better, quests are better, the community is 100 times better.

You know, there are other aspects in a mmo apart fluidity of gameplay. And I'm not sure wow is ahead of the others anymore in terms of lore, community and graphics.

[Rorschachs]

What are you talking about? It's extremely rare for a game to last 9 years except for a few die hard fans who still play them regularly. It's natural for games to get old and die.

No it's not extremely rare for a game to last 9 years.. lets stop making excuses for blizzard ok? A game doesn't need to be an extreme case to not die slowly in time, but wow is an extreme case anyway.

This is not a tv show where you can't replace people/you run out of ideas.. this is a video game. Yes people will get bored over time, but its not like the world population stops increasing right?

They can't compete with games like lol/cod with features like lfr/lfd. They can compete with those games with more quality but they are not trying that. They are trying to find shortcuts and it is lazy.

Yes, by making NEW THINGS. NO company continues to sell the same product with new paitings for 100 years. And this is what WoW is. The SAME thing with new colors every expansion. The SAME game since 2004. New stories, talents, raids, dungeons, quests, arenas, etc. don't change the core of the game. Even housing or something would not change anything. It's just another thing to do while doing the same stuff as 2004. THAT is the "problem". This is why a game gets old. This is not fixable by any amount of new content. This is only fixable by a completely new core gameplay. A completely new game!

Oh, and when you now tell me that I don't know... cars are the same since 100 yers and still people buy them I will break your face.

Subscribers should be replaced with new subscribers. They of course can't keep everybody hooked. That is not the issue, I am not saying "they need to edit the game to make it last 1000 years so we can all play it till we die." I am saying that they need to attract new players.

It is perfectly fine that you got bored of this game and you want the next big thing now and ofc you expect blizzard to come out with that because they created wow right? What's not so fine is the fact that people get bored of this game very fast now.

[Tharkkun]

Probably shows the big difference between western and eastern mentality. Age of Wushu is the biggest MMO in the world right now.

Asia appreciates the game, not for the graphics, not for the interface, not for the smoothness of battle, but for the big social dynamics in the game and it being a sandbox game where players make and decide the content.

In the west the focus is more on graphics and instant gratification... sadly even there WoW is dropping the ball though. Nobody can deny that GW2 has much better graphics and environments, same is true about Neverwinter. Just standing in the capital alone with all the detailed backgrounds and huge castle skylines in the distance is simply epic. Also it has gameplay more resembling Mass Effect and a fast-paced FPS than the tab-target system of WoW.

I whole heartedly disagree. The combat system in Wushu is terrible and clunky. It's like most FPS that come out that completely flop. Western or Eastern it's really terrible quality. Here's some examples. SWG had a good combat system. It flowed well. Wow has an excellent one. Rift feels clunky. Age of Conan was clunky. City of Heroes and Daoc actually flowed well.

FPS's COD, Crysis, Planetside, Batman Arkham games all flow. Global Agenda, Battlefield series, Brink, Fallout all have extremely clunky flow. Mass effect 2 and 3 I will say did a pretty good job. ME 1 was bad. Back in the 90's they would rate a game on graphics, sound and play control. How much control do you have over your character and how does it respond when you tell it what to do?

So when I try Wushu the combat flow is just painful.

Wow looks as amazing as any game if you kick it up to Ultra. It's a different type of artwork though so to many the cartoon feeling detracts from the realism you see in other games. But detail wise they are nearly the same when comparing MMO's. Something like Crysis where you don't account for 100 players in the screen at once can afford to raise the bar.

[Hubbl3]

That's true, wow has achieved a level of smoothness in their gameplay that is far far ahead anything else.

Thing is fluid gameplay isn't everything in a game.
Look I started playing gw2 recently. The fights are actually fun, and I don't mean huge boss fights, I mean every single mob. It's active, dynamic, you have to stay on your toes or you simply get killed... you know, fun.
Graphics are better, the environment is better, quests are better, the community is 100 times better.

You know, there are other aspects in a mmo apart fluidity of gameplay. And I'm not sure wow is ahead of the others anymore in terms of lore, community and graphics.

GW2 is fun. The first time to play a character to level 80 at least. Then the excitement dies off very fast. Yes, it has a better graphic engine then WoW (more shiny things!), but the art style and asthetics of WoW are vastly superior. The lore is... there is lore in GW2 besides "bandits/wild animals are coming, help us!"? The character quest is nice, up to level 20. Then it totally sucks. The ending of the quest is very dissapointing. And there is no challenge in the game at all, except maybe PvP. RvR was also very dissapointing. Community was very nice and friendly, though.

(This is my opinion, and the game may have changed since I deleted it in 01/2013)

[Deficineiron]

They wont keep up the same type of content with 1m subs.

A game losing 13.5% of their subs in 3 months is indeed a huge deal. I can assure you they are having some serious meetings this week.
Seeing the numbers for next quarter will be the real indicator. Games have their lows and highs.

If it stayed on this same path for example over the next 3 quarters they will have lost 54% of their subs in one year.

haven't looked at a blizzard 10q in 6 months, but saw this thread. 10q's were getting more and more un-useful, so many things being thrown into the subscription revenue number. 1.3m is a shocking number no matter how you divide it regionally, particularly with a content patch (west, dunno china) released in this time-period and the west still shows notable declines.

as was apparently noted on the call - what is going to reverse this trend in the next 9 months? I cannot see any reason not to expect sequential declines until just before a new expansion. seeing wow worldwide with a 6m handle the quarter prior to the lead-in to next expansion isn't unreasonable at all.

[Tharkkun]

No it's not extremely rare for a game to last 9 years.. lets stop making excuses for blizzard ok? A game doesn't need to be an extreme case to not die slowly in time, but wow is an extreme case anyway.

This is not a tv show where you can't replace people/you run out of ideas.. this is a video game. Yes people will get bored over time, but its not like the world population stops increasing right?

They can't compete with games like lol/cod with features like lfr/lfd. They can compete with those games with more quality but they are not trying that. They are trying to find shortcuts and it is lazy.



Subscribers should be replaced with new subscribers. They of course can't keep everybody hooked. That is not the issue, I am not saying "they need to edit the game to make it last 1000 years so we can all play it till we die." I am saying that they need to attract new players.

It is perfectly fine that you got bored of this game and you want the next big thing now and ofc you expect blizzard to come out with that because they created wow right? What's not so fine is the fact that people get bored of this game very fast now.

There becomes a point where they won't be able to attract new subscribers. People want something new just to say it's new. I'm hoping Titan will bring that new, exciting feeling back again. It's too hard in Wow because we've done everything.

[Deficineiron]

Yet AoW has 20 million players in China and WoW does not ... Asian players just appreciate the social dynamics of a game over combat systems... They like their video games simulating a second social life...

this forum generally doesn't like to recognize that wow isn't the biggest pay mmo in the world, but it does like to use those same chinese subs to make wow the alleged biggest pay-mmo. Last I heard one of the netease westward journey mmo's was substantially bigger than wow, using the same payment system as most wow subs use.

[Tharkkun]

Yet AoW has 20 million players in China and WoW does not ... Asian players just appreciate the social dynamics of a game over combat systems... They like their video games simulating a second social life...

Their population dwarfs ours and they crave games that have steep grinds. Less skill, more button mashing grinds. Wow eliminated many of the time wasting grinds and maybe that was their biggest error...though I liked the change.

[bufferunderrun]

That's true, wow has achieved a level of smoothness in their gameplay that is far far ahead anything else.

Thing is fluid gameplay isn't everything in a game.
Look I started playing gw2 recently. The fights are actually fun, and I don't mean huge boss fights, I mean every single mob. It's active, dynamic, you have to stay on your toes or you simply get killed... you know, fun.
Graphics are better, the environment is better, quests are better, the community is 100 times better.

You know, there are other aspects in a mmo apart fluidity of gameplay. And I'm not sure wow is ahead of the others anymore in terms of lore, community and graphics.

graphics probably but in term of lore there is no game, except lotro, that have such a huge expandend and immersive lore like warcraft

[Deleted]

No it's not extremely rare for a game to last 9 years.. lets stop making excuses for blizzard ok? A game doesn't need to be an extreme case to not die slowly in time, but wow is an extreme case anyway.

This is not a tv show where you can't replace people/you run out of ideas.. this is a video game. Yes people will get bored over time, but its not like the world population stops increasing right?

They can't compete with games like lol/cod with features like lfr/lfd. They can compete with those games with more quality but they are not trying that. They are trying to find shortcuts and it is lazy.



Subscribers should be replaced with new subscribers. They of course can't keep everybody hooked. That is not the issue, I am not saying "they need to edit the game to make it last 1000 years so we can all play it till we die." I am saying that they need to attract new players.

It is perfectly fine that you got bored of this game and you want the next big thing now and ofc you expect blizzard to come out with that because they created wow right? What's not so fine is the fact that people get bored of this game very fast now.

Yes new players should be coming in to replace old ones. But honestly, have you tried starting a new char in a new server?
Levelling is such a tedious experience, linear bland quests, sometimes you level up and you get nothing, not a talent point not a skill nothing, pvp at lower levels is, well... you know, community non existent... Why would a new gamer join up wow in this state?

Look at wotlk. Look at the levelling experience in wotlk. Different questing paths with quality content, strong community, and an d world behind them that still had a non linear, adventurous feel to it and some high quality content.
I could see a new player coming in then.

What if a new player picks goblin as his main race, at lvl 8 he's going to delete his char, account, and pc.

[Deficineiron]

Huh? How did Cata return to the old formula?

Folks keep saying this like it was fact, but cataclysm was a vastly different game, and almost always much easier/simpler/lesscomplex/less skill-rewarding than tbc in virtually every single class/gameplay aspect. somewhat hard max-level content seems to be the only thing people can point to.

[Deleted]

graphics probably but in term of lore there is no game, except lotro, that have such a huge expandend and immersive lore like warcraft

If for lore you mean what's behind the game as a whole yes, wow has much better lore.
But lets face it, what they came up with in the last two expansions isn't good lore.
Cata was atrocious lorewise, and sorry but mop is just as bad, the story behind everything could have been written by my nephew.

[Rorschachs]

There becomes a point where they won't be able to attract new subscribers. People want something new just to say it's new. I'm hoping Titan will bring that new, exciting feeling back again. It's too hard in Wow because we've done everything.

%100 not the case. People want to play a good game that others play.
-"Casuals" want to play a good game.
-"Hardcore players" aka competitive players want to play a good game that others play ; because they want to compete against others.

Nobody will care or even consider something old if they haven't tried it before ; but people who have played the game before aren't "fresh blood" anyway.
The game in its current state lacks direction and that sucks for blizzard if they want to attract new players.

[Deficineiron]

Lol implying TBC heroics were hard, good one.

One interesting phenomenon of the passage of time in the increasing number of posters who, years later, now claim tbc heroics weren't hard. one guy even claimed to have cleared all tbc heroic lockouts in about 6 hours.

I can point you to a thread from early wotlk feb09 about easy wotlk heroics. There are lots of comments about tbc, and no one says they were easy. a number of folks are quite explicit in discussing how hard they were.

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 06:44 AM ----------

If Asia is main point of Sub lose, it will have to eventually stop. lets say US & EU have 2.5 / 3 Mill each that is 5-6 Million Subs. Like even that is still alot. "But that is also half of what we had in Wrath aswell". The point comes that maybe WoW is only successful in the Western Market now & Eastern Market is being taken over by F2P games.

any assumptoin that puts eu./na over 4m is very optimistic.

[Hubbl3]

Yet AoW has 20 million players in China and WoW does not ... Asian players just appreciate the social dynamics of a game over combat systems... They like their video games simulating a second social life...

Or paying no money over paying money.

[Deficineiron]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who realized this from the summary of the financial report.

if you are thinking there are 6m western players, you are way, way off.

there are stated data points over time that give some good guidance on the relationship between china, asia in genearl, and na/eu.

late cat. I think the game was around 3.75-4.24m western subs. I can assure you that the specific revenue category numbers in no way support a claim of 6, or even 5m western subs in that time period.

[Deleted]

One interesting phenomenon of the passage of time in the increasing number of posters who, years later, now claim tbc heroics weren't hard. one guy even claimed to have cleared all tbc heroic lockouts in about 6 hours.

I can point you to a thread from early wotlk feb09 about easy wotlk heroics. There are lots of comments about tbc, and no one says they were easy. a number of folks are quite explicit in discussing how hard they were.

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 06:44 AM ----------




any assumptoin that puts eu./na over 4m is very optimistic.

I'm amazed people say that. Tbc heroics were the highest level of pve I've encountered ever.

[Hubbl3]

I'm amazed people say that. Tbc heroics were the highest level of pve I've encountered ever.

Then you have not encountered PvE in WoW that much.