Is enthusiasm for WoW dwindling?

[Wildmoon]

Blizzard doesn't work under that though. They don't have to bother being as meticulous with planning bosses and encounters anymore because they work under this caveat of "well if not enough people beat it we're just going to nerf it anyways". They are not worrying about spending all that energy creating a good encounter that will really test the limits of what is capable within the games defined parameters.

Here's one more point for you.

People LOOOOOOVE to throw this "accessibility" term around so much, well heres my 2 cents on the subject.

The game play of a game determines how much I enjoyed it. I don't measure how much % of content I've seen from all the game's I've played as some measuring stick to how good it was.

So yea, I may play a game and see and do everything it had to offer......but everything it had to offer was shit.

Juxtaposed against a game that maybe I didn't beat, maybe I didn't even see HALF of what it had to offer, yet I loved every fucking second of it.

So yea, this "accessibility" ignorant buzzword nonsense should of been ignored for the stupid argument that it is. Instead it seems to be defining blizzard's development philosophy and their games are showing the effects of it.

Except they are not shit content?

[Herecius]

Populations shoot up to max at major patch releases, then slowly dwindle the longer the patch is out. They'll peak again at 5.2, then again at 5.3 or 4. A common misconception folks have is that an MMO's population is static, for some reason.

[Deleted]

Play the game if you enjoy it, stop if you don't. Simple really. Other people's enthusiasm for the game should have nothing to do with it.

People can be interested in the WoW playerbase evolution and want to discuss it whether or not they're currently enjoying the game.
I've not seen anybody except you relate it to "should I still play the game".
So you gave an answer to a question that wasn't asked.

[Maelstrom51]

A new dalies faction with a brilliant quest line running through it, Brawlers Guild and a few new scenarios as well.

I would take a rehashed dungeon of that trash.

[yjmark]

I think this tier was affected though, I have been raiding for 6 years and our guild has never walked through heroic content like this. 1-2 shotting heroic bosses because they are so tuned down for the depleted player base. I think all heroic bosses should scale and be really hard then let the nerf's compensate for the other player's wanting to clear heroic content. My Signature says a lot imo. People used to be ok with not being able to clear content because it was difficult, they accepted their limitations and tried to get better. Now instead of getting better they are bad and just wait for the nerfs.

Interesting how most of the world first guilds did not think that T14 heroic modes were e-z mode. Maybe you are just better than they are?

[Wildmoon]

I think this tier was affected though, I have been raiding for 6 years and our guild has never walked through heroic content like this. 1-2 shotting heroic bosses because they are so tuned down for the depleted player base. I think all heroic bosses should scale and be really hard then let the nerf's compensate for the other player's wanting to clear heroic content. My Signature says a lot imo. People used to be ok with not being able to clear content because it was difficult, they accepted their limitations and tried to get better. Now instead of getting better they are bad and just wait for the nerfs.

I think some undertuned bosses for 1 tier are not that bad. The overall difficulty of hard mode is still really hard

[isadorr]

Populations shoot up to max at major patch releases, then slowly dwindle the longer the patch is out. They'll peak again at 5.2, then again at 5.3 or 4. A common misconception folks have is that an MMO's population is static, for some reason.

Good progression guilds come back clear content and then start gearing alt's once a week. Possibly sell runs to other's who can't clear for guild gold and then most take time off again maybe getting on once a week to gear another alt. To be honest gearing alts takes the most time because you have to have them for the next patch or tier where ranged is almost always more useful. So once a week becomes the norm and as you mentioned, sub's do not equal how many people are playing everyday.

---------- Post added 2013-01-07 at 09:48 PM ----------

Interesting how most of the world first guilds did not think that T14 heroic modes were e-z mode. Maybe you are just better than they are?

Actually I guess you don't watch the live streams or the postings on the front of MMO when they cleared everything. They said almost the same thing on the front page, heroic bosses should not be a 1-2 shot especially end bosses. various interviews and articles all said the same thing. Do a search you can find them all very easily. The various bosses that were slow to be killed had bugs and once they were fixed they were killed the very next day which affected progression depending where the hot fix was implemented first, us or eu.

[Fagatronics]

I barely even remember what the map looks like. :S I spent a lot of time in both Wrath and Cataclysm in Northrend (plus I just leveled my monk through there). I'm very familiar with how the actual areas look.

While I do agree that there's a lot less variance in Northrend (or Pandaria) compared to Outland, "different" is not necessarily "better". You get some really nice zones like Zangarmarsh, Netherstorm, and Shadowmoon Valley, and some really awful ones like Hellfire Peninsula and Blade's Edge Mountains. At least with Northrend and Pandaria pretty much the entire continents look good. (And as far as Pandaria goes, the differences between zones are far more apparent on the ground than they are from the air.)

I'll agree with most of that. I think "different" isn't always better necessarily but it makes me feel like they're trying. Like scenarios in MoP, they didn't workout as well as I hoped so maybe they tune them a bit in the future. Same with terrain from TBC, it wasn't perfect and could have definitely been improved upon but they took a backstep imo and made it more bland. I thought they hit 2 extremes with Outland and Northrend with the former being all over the place while the ladder was too safe.

I liked Outland though because this is a game and a fantasy game at that, so a more array of areas is more interesting and immersive for me.

This is basically the point I was making.

Seriously, look at Hellfire. (Yes, I know I keep going on about it :S)
You talked about covering the land in white for Northrend. Hellfire is just covered in orange. Same texture over and over, exactly the same as the snow.

Anyway, this is kind of Off Topic, isn't it? ^^

I agree Hellfire wasn't revolutionizing from a graphics or color standpoint (Blades Edge used too much orange also). But Blizz should learn from their past and not say "that was all orange so this can be all white." Like I said, this is a fantasy game so they should go nuts. WoW lore and basis in reality have been all over the place for some time now. I like Pandaria but with such a blank slate for the area and lore, it could have pushed the boundaries a bit more.

And yes this has gotten waaaaay off topic

OT: I applaud MoP for it's efforts and content but nothing really makes me want to continue playing sadly. Maybe I've just grown out of it.

[Descolada]

the vocal minority claiming "oh hey herpa derp, we pay $15 a month like the hardcores, we should see all the content too!!!", caved for the sake of making $$$ rather than making compelling gameplay.

You think the herp derps are the vocal minority?

[Kymei]

I don't know, I want to play WoW, because I had a lot of great times on it, but I know that as soon as I subscribe within hours I will find myself in stormwind riding around on my mount talking in trade chat. The content quality sucks, no matter how much of it there is, and I'm an achievement point/pet/mount nerd so it's actually really easy to satisfy a customer like me, hell, if elemental shamans weren't so horrible in pvp compared to other casters, I wouldn't mind simply playing battlegrounds all day everyday.

[Faroth]

Another WoW is dying/fading/not as good thread from Jaylock? Meh.

Still enjoying WoW and I've not let my sub lapse once since Jan 2005. I've started logging in less here recently since I'm almost exalted with Shado Pan and that just leaves August Celestials and Anglers. I'm in no real hurry. I have two alts to level 90 and one to almost 88. Basically just logging in for heroics/dailies for valor and LFR until our straggling raiders catch up (why does real life try and explode with crazy when an expansion releases?) and we swap over to that.

Main thing that's got me playing less is trying to catch up on a backlog of blu rays/DVDs and console games right now, plus trying to work on developing a project with a friend.

Still really like this expansion myself, though. Way more than Cataclysm and if my raid were back together and running it'd be right there with Wrath hands down.

[Lomak]

Except they are not shit content?

My example was speaking plainly in generalities not specifically WoW.

That being said I disagree. Dailies are the perfect example of shit content IMO.

[isadorr]

You think the herp derps are the vocal minority?

They did cave and yes i think they are the,"Vocal," always whining wanting nerf's and wanting the same loot as everyone else. What happened to getting better to down a boss? Recruiting good players instead of the people you know are bad and shouldn't be anywhere near a raid but they someone's friend or gf,wife,husband, etc. Most of the people who can't clear without nerfs and easy bosses put themselves in that position by who they play with.

We had progression done and i went to another server with a fresh toon I had just made. I asked him about the guild and he said they were real good dps and great heals, so I thought i wouldn't mind helping. The first raid, dps was horrible and so were the heals. He always raided with the same people so he never knew how bad they were or that he was playing badly. I fixed his toon and showed him the right stats, reforge and then recruited some better player's I knew and we cleared heroic DS with 15% nerf.

[Arbs]

Stormrage is still packed

[Deleted]

Same as Pokemon and Counter-Strike 1.6, it was cool and it's still cool, but people don't play it so massively anymore.
But games are Pokemon/CS can live forever, because servers wont be shut down, but can't say the same for official WoW.

[Deleted]

I almost wanted to response.... but then i noticed that it's one of the Jaylock's threads.

I'm with this guy.

But yeah the game has been out for a lot of time, still a lot of people plays it, who cares if some left you should play because you like it not because there is more/less people online.

[Anjerith]

Yup, most of the long term players have left.

Where do you glean this amazing Truth from? I have been playing since the game launched and, though I don't play with them anymore, I know that many of the people in my 40 man-raid Guild back then still play. So by my personal knowledge, which is 100% as reliable as yours, interest in the game has dropped by single-digit percents.

[isadorr]

Same as Pokemon and Counter-Strike 1.6, it was cool and it's still cool, but people don't play it so massively anymore.
But games are Pokemon/CS can live forever, because servers wont be shut down, while (official)WoW will once die.

I agree with this but if the new mmo they are speculated to be working on is a harder version of wow I think wow won't die. They can add new content in wow that is adjusted for the player base and do the same for the other new mmo perhaps getting a lot of raiders playing again. This is a possibility as they aren't going to want to kill wow with a new mmo but they could give the two totally different players what they want. One would be a lot easier and the other a lot harder giving progression guilds a challenge while wow left for raiding with a lot of other content also.

[Crashdummy]

No one forced you to do dailies. If your guild requires it, it is still up to you. Don't pretend to be hardcore and complain about what is required.

Blizzard forces me, not my guild. And again, they are trying to sheep everyone into them, which i think it sucks. I dont pretend to be hardcore, dailies are required not only for hardcores.

I dont want to keep discussing this, its being discussed too lojng already. They are forced, i dont like them, they killed my enjoyment.

[Herecius]

I agree Hellfire wasn't revolutionizing from a graphics or color standpoint (Blades Edge used too much orange also). But Blizz should learn from their past and not say "that was all orange so this can be all white." Like I said, this is a fantasy game so they should go nuts. WoW lore and basis in reality have been all over the place for some time now. I like Pandaria but with such a blank slate for the area and lore, it could have pushed the boundaries a bit more.

And yes this has gotten waaaaay off topic

OT: I applaud MoP for it's efforts and content but nothing really makes me want to continue playing sadly. Maybe I've just grown out of it.

I don't know about that. MoP is RICH with lore. The story of the first Pandaren emperor is one of my favorite lore bits that have been introduced to WoW in a long time, and the Mantid are very well realized. The celestials could've seen more love, I think, but the Mogu have a very rich story surrounding them. The 5.2 war storyline has been fantastic as well.

Very little in questing has ever given me a thrill like sneaking into Darnassus did, a genuine, unphased Darnasus, where I actually had to dodge those players (CRZ players, even!) that were there.

The only thing about MoP's lore is that it is not nearly as 'up front' (other than the Mantid) as it has been with lore in the past. To see the Dominance storyline, you've got to do the rep, to see more about the story of Shaohao, you've got to do the quests, as well as a good amount of archeology I think. There's a great deal of stuff in MoP, it's just not all on the surface is all.