How many WoW players actually raid?

[Deleted]

According to WoWProgress.com we have very roughly, 50,000 guilds that have cleared 8/8 to 1/8 heroic. That means the bottom part was mediocre but they stepped in the thing and tried it (more than just wiping on a couple of bosses). Multiplying that by 17 which is roughly between 10 and 25 we get around 1,000,000 players. This is generous because people often say 10mans have taken over lately. However, accounting for guild hopping making the actual guilds less and the fact I excluded everything below top 50,000, that may compensate about the '17' generosity.

So, if we assume that this rough and questionable estimation of 1,000,000 players is correct we can see that actual normal and heroic raiders are a minority. It makes sense therefore to not be the last word on what is happening in the game.

[Deleted]

According to WoWProgress.com we have very roughly, 50,000 guilds that have cleared 8/8 to 1/8 heroic. That means the bottom part was mediocre but they stepped in the thing and tried it (more than just wiping on a couple of bosses). Multiplying that by 17 which is roughly between 10 and 25 we get around 1,000,000 players. This is generous because people often say 10mans have taken over lately. However, accounting for guild hopping making the actual guilds less and the fact I excluded everything below top 50,000, that may compensate about the '17' generosity.

So, if we assume that this rough and questionable estimation of 1,000,000 players is correct we can see that actual normal and heroic raiders are a minority. It makes sense therefore to not be the last word on what is happening in the game.

Why would you cut it off at 1 hc boss? I know quite a few people that yet have killed DW on normal but still raid, as a guild.

[Aquamonkey]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...lue-Posts-Poll
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...ics-MMO-Report

[MoanaLisa]

According to WoWProgress.com we have very roughly, 50,000 guilds that have cleared 8/8 to 1/8 heroic. That means the bottom part was mediocre but they stepped in the thing and tried it (more than just wiping on a couple of bosses). Multiplying that by 17 which is roughly between 10 and 25 we get around 1,000,000 players. This is generous because people often say 10mans have taken over lately. However, accounting for guild hopping making the actual guilds less and the fact I excluded everything below top 50,000, that may compensate about the '17' generosity.

So, if we assume that this rough and questionable estimation of 1,000,000 players is correct we can see that actual normal and heroic raiders are a minority. It makes sense therefore to not be the last word on what is happening in the game.

Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it. Everyone that argues that WoW rises and falls on the strength of raiding alone is, for the most part, wrong. You can see multitudes of examples of this over in the "Now everyone can see the content" thread. People want to explain the ups and downs of the game according to what interests them. And actually, I don't have that much of a problem with that. It's when it crosses over the line into being totally oblivious to the fact that raiding is a niche, has always been a niche, and probably always will be a niche activity. That's either being willfully stupid or dishonest.

[Deleted]

Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it. Everyone that argues that WoW rises and falls on the strength of raiding alone is, for the most part, wrong. You can see multitudes of examples of this over in the "Now everyone can see the content" thread. People want to explain the ups and downs of the game according to what interests them. And actually, I don't have that much of a problem with that. It's when it crosses over the line into being totally oblivious to the fact that raiding is a niche, has always been a niche, and probably always will be a niche activity. That's either being willfully stupid or dishonest.

Every aspect of the end game is a niche.
PvP is also for minority, since only a small % of the player base is doing any.

Active subs with not even a sinlge 85 exists in large numbers, according to blizzard.

The point is to develop things for all.
And when it comes to raiding, to actually be raiding.

Further more, do a small research into how many more people did actually raid at some point of this epxansion alone and now they dont while still log occassionaly (it counts as active sub).
Raiding is not a snapshot of a tier, or even worse, a snasphot of the present moment (no way more than 20k guilds raid dragon soul right now).
Raiding is there for all, and many jump in and out, according to their mood, or the time commitments they have in real life.

Same as with pvp and dungeons.
It is only normal the larger the commitment, the smaller the portion of the player base to be using a feature at a given moment.

[Deleted]

Every aspect of the end game is a niche.
PvP is also for minority, since only a small % of the player base is doing any.

Active subs with not even a sinlge 85 exists in large numbers, according to blizzard.

The point is to develop things for all.
And when it comes to raiding, to actually be raiding.

Further more, do a small research into how many more people did actually raid at some point of this epxansion alone and now they dont while still log occassionaly (it counts as active sub).
Raiding is not a snapshot of a tier, or even worse, a snasphot of the present moment (no way more than 20k guilds raid dragon soul right now).
Raiding is there for all, and many jump in and out, according to their mood, or the time commitments they have in real life.

Same as with pvp and dungeons.
It is only normal the larger the commitment, the smaller the portion of the player base to be using a feature at a given moment.

Yeah but the raider element keep asking for other parts of the game to be removed. (LFR, 10/25 man raiding, whatever)

Pvpers, questers, very slow levellers, the lovers of 5 man et al don't ask for other peoples content to be removed.

[Snaige]

I know a quite a few people who have been playing since vanilla and are yet to do a dungeon.

Raiding is just one of the many optional things to do on wow. Yes, it is a small percentage of players who raid. A small percentage of players pvp. A small percentage of players roleplays. A small percentage of players does twinking. A small percentage of players collect vanity pets/mounts. A small percentage of players are on wow only for chat, use it like a chat program. A small percentage of players play the auction house. A small percentage of players do farming/herbing. A small percentage of players are botting. And a small percentage of players do all of the above. Combine those small percentages and you will get the whole playerbase.

That small small playerbase that does pvp/raids/dungeons just happens to have a very loud mouth and comes to forums to burst into tears/anger/loggical-illogical arguments. So others end up under the impression that that's what all of wow players are like.

[formerblizzemployee]

Blizz goes by how many toons raid, it boosts the overall %. If there are are 10 people and 5 raid, that's 50% in reality. Blizz will look at the toons and if each raider has 2 toons, that's 100% to them. They have always creatively defined things in fine print though, this is perfectly legal. You are allowed to set your own rules as long as they don't conflict with federal/state regulations and you then must adhere to your rules. Subs are the same way, a subscription isn't a person, it's an account with lots of qualifiers that include people in china who don't pay a monthly fee.

In reality only around 20% of people EVER raid on their account, LFR is more popular as far as people doing it than any 3 tiers from an expansion combined.

There is no singular reason, some are afraid to fail, some think it's far more difficult than it is, a lot of it has to do with the impatience of the community and some just don't like PVE.

Blizz knows their game shines when it comes to end-game raiding and they want to involve 75% of the community in that (that's the goal, may never happen). They know they can't compete with other games if they don't get people raiding.

[Tiev]

I know a quite a few people who have been playing since vanilla and are yet to do a dungeon.

I honestly cannot fathom how that is possible. I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, far from it. I just sincerely cannot comprehend what compels people to play this game if not for the end-game aspects of it.

Roughly every other aspect of the game can be completely annihilated by any good sandbox game (and GW2 mostly now that it's out. Exploration, crafting, the feeling of a live breathing world).

The only thing that keeps me coming back to this game is the end-game (and I do love it). I just don't see how the rest of it can hold a significant appeal to a player with better stuff out there.

Maybe because their friends are here or they have devoted too much time into it. But eh..

[Snaige]

I honestly cannot fathom how that is possible. I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, far from it. I just sincerely cannot comprehend what compels people to play this game if not for the end-game aspects of it.

Roughly every other aspect of the game can be completely annihilated by any good sandbox game (and GW2 mostly now that it's out. Exploration, crafting, the feeling of a live breathing world).

The only thing that keeps me coming back to this game is the end-game (and I do love it). I just don't see how the rest of it can hold a significant appeal to a player with better stuff out there.

Maybe because their friends are here or they have devoted too much time into it. But eh..

An large number of people would love to do that but suffer from social anxiety, mostly women, especially slightly older.

Googling social anxiety+raiding gave me some results, worth a read, might cause you reevaluate other people a little bit.
http://heavywoolbandage.wordpress.co...-group-effort/
http://bossypally.wordpress.com/2011...ing-your-game/

---------- Post added 2012-08-27 at 06:35 PM ----------

aha, there is even a guild for such people, that's their recruitment post
Paranoid is a guild for the socially awkward, the shy, the people who’d like to raid, but get a headache just thinking about all the things they could screw up. The people who type a message to someone who’s LFM in trade, then backspace, then type, backspace, type, stare at what they’ve written, backspace again and go quest on their own. And if they do press enter, they’re relieved if they get the reply: “Sorry, full.”

Yes, there are a lot of people like that.
Really.

[MoanaLisa]

Blizz knows their game shines when it comes to end-game raiding and they want to involve 75% of the community in that (that's the goal, may never happen). They know they can't compete with other games if they don't get people raiding.

It looks as if they've been competing pretty damn well for the last few years with a very small percentage of subscribers raiding. The problem with Blizzard competing with anyone in this market segment is that everyone else fails on a regular basis. No argument with the rest of your post. I would love to see 75% of the subscriber base raiding in LFR/Normal/Heroic as that would justify raids a-plenty. It's clear that by a wide majority that would mostly be in LFR if it were to ever happen which is why I think those in the raiding community that keep calling for it to go away or have the rewards removed to the point where it's not worth doing are being stupid.

[vesseblah]

So, if we assume that this rough and questionable estimation of 1,000,000 players is correct we can see that actual normal and heroic raiders are a minority. It makes sense therefore to not be the last word on what is happening in the game.

And that is exactly the reason why special snowflakes aren't getting special treatment in the game.

Blizzard understands it and the more smarter forum posters understand it that raiding is minority activity in this game. Blue posters have many times said that more than half of the accounts have never reached level cap. Questing is what people are doing the most in this game by far, not raiding and not PvP.

[Grogo]

The one's questing...do not stay subscribed like Raiders do. Take that as a fact. Raiding still makes the game tick and is the main component.

[Deleted]

The one's questing...do not stay subscribed like Raiders do. Take that as a fact. Raiding still makes the game tick and is the main component.

Truth be told this game finds its culmination in PvE. I respect PvP enormously and I bow to the exceptional skill of the best PvP players but I dislike personally the way PvP functions in this game. Pure PvP for me is mainly in FPS gaming where movement is free. Here's it's too 'chess-y'. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course.

I have an objective argument on my side though. This game has started as PvE.

[MoanaLisa]

The one's questing...do not stay subscribed like Raiders do. Take that as a fact. Raiding still makes the game tick and is the main component.

That's deluded. Raiding makes the forums tick but about 9 out of 10 people never step inside normal/heroic raid.

[Shoridayo]

I raid. It's pretty much the only thing I look forward to.
Had 8/8H downed at 15% and it got really boring.

Now I'm just in a casual guild where we raid for fun, and it's actually just better.

[Ryme]

Outside of LFR, we have the following statistics:

25-Man Guilds 1,484
10-Man Guilds 51,464

Which gives us a rough total of about 551,740 people actively raiding. We're niche. But we're important enough to develop a lot of content for, a good food for thought question on the next "I love/hate the new nerf" topic arises is to ask yourself why.

(source)

[huth]

The one's questing...do not stay subscribed like Raiders do. Take that as a fact. Raiding still makes the game tick and is the main component.

They don't stay subscribed, but the individual isn't relevant. 4 people who each subscribe for 3 months a year are as good as one that subscribes for 12. Now, remember that there's easily 8 years worth of non-raider subscriptions for every 1 year of raiders.
You could remove raiding entirely and the game would still be able to survive.

[Grogo]

That's deluded. Raiding makes the forums tick but about 9 out of 10 people never step inside normal/heroic raid.

That is wrong. I also noticed you left out LFR...is it a raid or is it not a raid?

[Nerraw]

I raid mostly for fun. And because I still have a very faint hope to see Cunning of the Cruel drop before MoP.