1.3 million sub drop

[Axxy]

Does anyone really think that games coming out at the moment are tbh, that great?

I saw the announcement for the next generation of xbox on the front page here, and the only games that were mentioned were the same tired franchises that have made gaming so boring at the moment. Next generation and all they can muster is the same old shit, CoD154, MW23, FiFa..... getting bored typing already.....zzzzzz

What's coming out in the future is kinda how I feel about present gaming, including WoW... It's time for some innovation, not the same old tired formula.

[Gimlix]

I kind of do think that Blizzard think anything they do will turn to gold and their fans will lap it up. Looking at their past history, it is pretty impressive.

D, D2, SC, SC2, WOW, WOW-BC, WOW-WOTLK.

All major hits.

I personally think WOW's continue decline is a good thing. Not for Blizzard but for the MMO market. It needs more choice and WOW is kind a major road block. It is like MS Windows. Personally I think it is a rather poor OS. It has gotten better but it is still a poor OS and it is impossible for another OS to enter market now unless there is major change in the way people uses computers.

Personal opinion but i think if WoW would die. then the whole MMO market will die with it.
Yes there will be a few thousand subs at some games, but there will NEVER be MMORPG again that reaches more then 5M as WoW.

(Don't count those boring chinese MMO's please.)

[Aredyl]

Personal opinion but i think if WoW would die. then the whole MMO market will die with it.
Yes there will be a few thousand subs at some games, but there will NEVER be MMORPG again that reaches more then 5M as WoW.

(Don't count those boring chinese MMO's please.)

The MMO market will not die with WoW. Its just silly, as there is ample demand and supply. There just might not be that mega-populated MMO out there anymore.

Well, before WoW, the NA MMO market consisted of a few games supporting 200k to 400k subs, yet it was considered a success.

Its evident that there are quite a few more MMO players now than there was before. I suspect that the market will have quite a few (6-10) 500k-1mil sub games, along with all the smaller MMOs out there.

Edit: I forgot my prediction. I suspect that WoW will reduce down to under 7 million by the end of the year, unless they find something to keep the players entertained. I also believe that WoW has succeeded as long due to "resetting" itself once every 4-8 months (new gear levels and the lack of reliance on older content to reach those levels). Its losing market share in China, where there is a plethora of new MMOs coming out every year; new content just by switching and not waiting on WoW to release a major patch or expansion.

[anyaka21]

Personal opinion but i think if WoW would die. then the whole MMO market will die with it.
Yes there will be a few thousand subs at some games, but there will NEVER be MMORPG again that reaches more then 5M as WoW.

(Don't count those boring chinese MMO's please.)

rest assured, WoW won't die. Hell, EQ is still around. Sure not even close to boasting the numbers it used to have, but it's still around and expansions still being released, at least to my knowlege. It's even FTP now too.

I think the issue is that there are better options for less money now. Quality FTP games are out there, and even though most if not all FTP games do require some investment, it's not near the $15 a month you pay with WoW. I think you'll seem ore "pay as you play", FTP, type games coming.

Will there ever be another WoW? I have no idea. But just when we think there won't be something comes along out of the blue and captures a massive audience.

I think the key or one of the keys is that the company must appreciate it's customers. They must listen to them, adapt to them, and reward them. The games and customer bases are changing with time, and if companies don't adapt, then they'll fail.

[Heathy]

I think its just ppl getting older and or moving onto other things, lots of games have gone F2p over the last year.

At first i was a bit slanted face at the idea of pandaren in wow, i mean i remember the first brewfest and there being a pandaren, even being in a zg raid and hearing someone say 'If they add pandas to wow im going to quit!'

lol i don't mind them, it seems to fit in quite well and so far the expansion is pretty fun but i don't like many things that have changed with wow over the years, some things aren't just rose tinted shit, but i do feel that the quality of life stuff has got to the point where its detracted from the whole experience, everything is trivialized. eventually that is just gunna be enough for anyone. but the F2p thing is probably the main reason.

[Deleted]

They're going to take a hit in subs with this expansion no matter how you spin it. It was more of a niche theme than their previous expansions, although I do like the Pandaren. Not everyone liked the Oriental theme though, myself included. In order for the next expansion to boost subscriptions, they're going to need to include a few things:

-Updated character models for all races
-Higher resolution art
-Better ambient lighting effects
-Reduce a lot of the homogeneity and bring the talent system back to how it was (this is absolutely essential)
-Add the Bard Class (Yes, you will get armies of players coming back to play this class. I can 95% guarantee it). You should have done this already Blizzard.
-The new continent will need an oldworld feel. I'm talking about straight, cliche fantasy. Dark and treacherous dwarven holds gleaming with treasure, light and green elven woods with parts slowly being corrupted, misty forests with Worgen appearing out of the mists. It needs mystery and excitement. It needs to feel like WoW did in 2004 before mmo-champion started data-mining everything.

The problem with WoW is that it has turned into a glorified spreadsheet. Players want to get from point A to point B in as little time as possible. We all want to know everything Blizzard is planning far in advance. We datamine so we aren't surprised when new content comes out. The excitement lasts 10 minutes and then we are desensitized, instead of the excitement occurring while trekking through the new zones. This is why I never played in betas or PTRs, or read into much detail over new content coming out. I want to be walking through the forest in a new zone and see something I didn't see 5 months ago plastered all over a website, half done. It's no one's fault really, but WoW has become a homogenized ball of colors with addons covering 60% of the screen and a timer that shows you an approximation down to the millisecond of when you'll get a piece of gear that will increase your item level by 2. It's stopped being a game, it's bloated, the mystery and excitement is gone, it's old and washed out.

TLDR: Some serious design improvements in terms of story arcs, graphics, and mechanics are needed to pull this game out of the sludge. It will lose more than 1.3 million players as MoP winds down if something spectacular isn't shown off this November.

Good points, but unfortunatly I think that Blizzard and a large chunk of its players have become too entrenched in the 'convienience above all else' formula to go back. For now remember the better times and be cautiously optimistic for Titan (or any other upcoming MMO that takes your fancy).

Also a Bard class would be cool, maybe a DPS/Healer with a focus on short term group buffs, but I'd prefer to see some more classes based on Warcraft 3 units, maybe even some hero classes. I'd personally love to see Necromancers.

[Celista]

Also a Bard class would be cool, maybe a DPS/Healer with a focus on short term group buffs, but I'd prefer to see some more classes based on Warcraft 3 units, maybe even some hero classes. I'd personally love to see Necromancers.

Aren't Bards usually support classes? I don't see this going over well in wow tbh. I remember when paladins did little more than keep buffs active on everyone while in raids.

Demon Hunters would be popular though...or a Dragon race/class.

[huth]

Aren't Bards usually support classes? I don't see this going over well in wow tbh. I remember when paladins did little more than keep buffs active on everyone while in raids.

Demon Hunters would be popular though...or a Dragon race/class.

For what it's worth, i'd want to see Blizz take on a Heavy Metal "bard". Which probably wouldn't be very much about support.

[killidan]

Perhaps WoW has passed the point of no return. No matter what they do there will be a quick bump at expansion release followed by unstoppable decline and repeat at every expansion.

[veenusa]

not surprising, d3 is dying as well

[killidan]

not surprising, d3 is dying as well

That was a surprise to me. Before the release, I was thinking it would last for a while and I would be playing D3 as I wait for the next expansion.

I stopped playing after finishing once and realizing that I have to simply repeat the whole thing, which I thought was ridiculous.

It is sad, Blizzard used to be an amazing company.

[mvaliz]

not surprising, d3 is dying as well

Dying? It was pretty much limping and crawling 1 month after release from what I remember. :P

When that first patch hit, whooo nelly was it "abandon ship!"

---------- Post added 2013-05-24 at 03:27 AM ----------

That was a surprise to me. Before the release, I was thinking it would last for a while and I would be playing D3 as I wait for the next expansion.

I stopped playing after finishing once and realizing that I have to simply repeat the whole thing, which I thought was ridiculous.

It is sad, Blizzard used to be an amazing company.

THANK YOU for showcasing my biggest point about D3... and much of this applies to WoW - outdated thinking in game design.

You see, what you wrote there was 100% commonplace back in the SNES/2D days when D2 was released. They did it here because, well, it worked for D2 - OBVIOUSLY it would work again... right!?

They don't take into account that this is the Sandbox/RPG generation. There were 12 year old kids playing Diablo III who weren't even sperm when Diablo 2 came out... that's a LONG TIME... and a lot changes in that time.

I think WoW has had a lot of that same difficulty... especially with adding multiple difficulties of the same thing. The idea of "now try hard mode" is, quite frankly, rather outdated.

It's slowly convincing me that doing THREE versions of the same raid has been increasing raid burnout.

[Celista]

It's slowly convincing me that doing THREE versions of the same raid has been increasing raid burnout.

Ever notice how hated ToC/ToGC is on the forums? I think it is in part due to the burnout from ToC10/ToGC10/ToC25/ToGC 25. I loved ToGC personally, but still...almost universally disliked, very likely in part due to burnout.

[Deleted]

I called for -2 mil in the other prediction thread

This happens when you have inept lead game developers.

It doesn't matter the graphics, only the game mechanics. GC is an imbecile who lost billions of shareholders money. It should be kicked out and never allowed to work in this field, a total moron. You must be a total moron to manage to destroy a game like Barcelona in football.

[Ferocity]

Ever notice how hated ToC/ToGC is on the forums? I think it is in part due to the burnout from ToC10/ToGC10/ToC25/ToGC 25. I loved ToGC personally, but still...almost universally disliked, very likely in part due to burnout.

It was disliked because it was exactly one and same gray room, fully based on boss-rush. For both - 5-man and raid. With only 1 room, it couldn't be really called a dungeon, and it was inducing heavy claustrophobic feelings. It also automatically made Ulduar outdated, as Algalon loot was looking worse than whites in comparison to ToC gear, so it was hard to try and get people to go back to t8 as most people wanted loot from this awful room, which is ToC. It's funny how blue posts like to ignore these facts, instead saying that ToC failed because of burnout with lockouts. ToC was a test on how far developers can go with minimum content (Onyxia #2 was coming shortly after ToC - that's after we were told we won't be getting any rehashes, and Naxx was exception). They got the clue that people don't like completely minimalistic approach but don't mind rehashes, so there we go: DM, SFK, ZG, ZA, SM, Scholo...

[Deleted]

That was a surprise to me. Before the release, I was thinking it would last for a while and I would be playing D3 as I wait for the next expansion.

I stopped playing after finishing once and realizing that I have to simply repeat the whole thing, which I thought was ridiculous.

It is sad, Blizzard used to be an amazing company.

Farming became the only end game content because of the huge flaws in itemization+RMAH. The idea was that Inferno was the endgame, and completing it would have taken really a lot of time.

This didnt happen because it was simply impossibile to have meaningful progress and get increasingly better gear in Hell or Inferno A1, because of the totally horrendous drop system. The problem was exacerbated by the RMAH. Getting no gear in your normal play and having those shiny perfect pieces of armor in the AH made you feel like that was the only way to progress decently. Huge QQ -> Blizzard, instead of fixing itemization, nerfs the hell out of Inferno, making it another useless difficulty and not a proper challenging end game. That is the core issue about D3.

[Celista]

It was disliked because it was exactly one and same gray room, fully based on boss-rush. For both - 5-man and raid. With only 1 room, it couldn't be really called a dungeon, and it was inducing heavy claustrophobic feelings. It also automatically made Ulduar outdated, as Algalon loot was looking worse than whites in comparison to ToC gear, so it was hard to try and get people to go back to t8 as most people wanted loot from this awful room, which is ToC. It's funny how blue posts like to ignore these facts, instead saying that ToC failed because of burnout with lockouts. ToC was a test on how far developers can go with minimum content (Onyxia #2 was coming shortly after ToC - that's after we were told we won't be getting any rehashes, and Naxx was exception). They got the clue that people don't like completely minimalistic approach but don't mind rehashes, so there we go: DM, SFK, ZG, ZA, SM, Scholo...

I heard multiple players say themselves it was due to burnout, not blues.

I loved the approach for that raid tier--pure boss encounters, no trash and close run back to the instance. It worked for a tournament-style tier. I wouldn't want to see them take the same approach again, though...how many tournaments can one game have...and imo better than the rehashed raids we've seen since Wrath.

It doesn't matter the graphics, only the game mechanics. GC is an imbecile who lost billions of shareholders money. It should be kicked out and never allowed to work in this field, a total moron. You must be a total moron to manage to destroy a game like Barcelona in football.

Isn't he married to someone whose father is a higher-up or something? I thought I read something somewhere. Nepotism is horrible for business btw, tempting but don't ever do it unless you can keep a tight leash on your son-in-law, etc.

[HeedmySpeed]

THANK YOU for showcasing my biggest point about D3... and much of this applies to WoW - outdated thinking in game design.

You see, what you wrote there was 100% commonplace back in the SNES/2D days when D2 was released. They did it here because, well, it worked for D2 - OBVIOUSLY it would work again... right!?

They don't take into account that this is the Sandbox/RPG generation. There were 12 year old kids playing Diablo III who weren't even sperm when Diablo 2 came out... that's a LONG TIME... and a lot changes in that time.

I think WoW has had a lot of that same difficulty... especially with adding multiple difficulties of the same thing. The idea of "now try hard mode" is, quite frankly, rather outdated.

It's slowly convincing me that doing THREE versions of the same raid has been increasing raid burnout.

There's something we both can agree on.

Before being a Heroic raider you have to ask yourself if it's worth it after normals. For me it was more really about the idea of "well, there's nothing else and we might be capable of doing it."

The incentive isn't really strong to pursue higher difficulty.

That's why I've been so against LFR, it's a constant reminder that I don't have to push higher difficulty for a unique experience. That's such a huge statement right there. I don't have to. Gear looks the same save for a color and some numbers, I see most of the boss fights and the instance.

Just for the record, I don't like the idea of having normal and hardcore either but it's an even trickier debate.
Ideally I'd like one mode of raid where the difficulty ramps up to eventual "hardcore" type encounters.

[Deleted]

Personal opinion but i think if WoW would die. then the whole MMO market will die with it.
Yes there will be a few thousand subs at some games, but there will NEVER be MMORPG again that reaches more then 5M as WoW.

(Don't count those boring chinese MMO's please.)

I do not think that the mmo-market would die just because WoW would die, but I do feel that it is likely that the subscription based business model is not viable. I see more free-2-play mmos coming out luring people in because they are free and then people spend money ingame to get perks,costumes or perhaps because of a feeling of I want to pay the devs for making a good game.

[Drakesong]

That was a surprise to me. Before the release, I was thinking it would last for a while and I would be playing D3 as I wait for the next expansion.

I stopped playing after finishing once and realizing that I have to simply repeat the whole thing, which I thought was ridiculous.

It is sad, Blizzard used to be an amazing company.

Lol, I remember the first excuse Blizzard used regarding the first subs decline after MoP... "people left WoW because of Diablo". I was surprised by some people who actually believed that.

I also don't believe that WoW is dying because it's an old games and people tend to go to free games. Remember, WoW had 12m players back in 2010, but suddenly, 3 years later, it became an old game? Yeah, right.

The problem with WoW is that the playerbase have changed. Back in Vanilla, it was "ok" to spend all day leveling up, farming mats and gold for resistance gear and repair, so you could try your luck in a raid at night. The majority who was not hardcore were forced to take it slow when it comes to raiding (stuck in Molten core and ony), or be happy running the same old dungeons. And you know what, it was fun, IN THE PAST.

But everything has changed, players want to experience new things (no wonder they come back only when new expansions are lauched), and it's very clear, at least to me, that "things to do" don't usually mean "new content". The daily grind of MoP showed that to us, i've never seen the expression "burn out" pop so frequently on the forums since MoP has launched.

Look at 5.3 patch, for example. It's a good patch overall. The darkspear invasion was epic. But, i've already "consumed" all the content in less than a week!!! Got the title and experienced the BG, the only thing that was left was the new brawgar bosses, but i don't like that very much, so i won't bother.

So, it took 3 months to design a patch that lasted for a week. WoW's problem is that the dev's team can't design as fast as the player's desire to experience new stuff!!!

What about the PvP and PvE division. Why do we have to farm 2 sets of gear in order to experience new content? This forces players to choose wich game style they want to focus, instead of experiencing both. By doing this you cut the player's experience in half!

Despite what I said, I believe that WoW is dying because it's an old game, but not only because it's an old game, it's because the development's team was unable to change as much as the player's mind has.