By the time that Blizzard´s lazzy ass dev team release WoD the game will only have 5 millions as the top so so
This isnt a good time for us
That graph doesn't show or explain away people like me, who periodically leave and then come back as soon as we have the funds again. You're misconstruing data to make it sound like the numbers only represent new and active accounts. I pay them when I can and that's what I put when I have to freeze my account.
So explain "Any constant change to the product may render the theory moot (god I hate that word)".
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Except GC's imprint is going to be all over WoD. He's the lead designer for that expansion. You're going to be waiting a while. But in the end, you will see that it wasn't him.
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How do you know how many people are playing it? Box sales? Is that how you're doing it?
I think this is worth repeating yet again:
WoW is a 9 year old game that costs $180 a year to play (not including the actual game). Somehow despite this it is miles ahead of every other sub based MMO. And against a proliferation of strong FTP options.
Seriously name another game you have been playing regularly for 9 years. And would you pay $180 a year for it?
Sure, if we discover a new planet inhabited by millions of people who haven't already played WoW enough to get sick of it.
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If you seriously don't think there's a difference between a game lasting 9 years and a new title in a series coming out 9 years later, then please stop talking about video games. You don't know the first thing about them.
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You mean the door leading away from his secure job and into a new opportunity that he decided was good for his career/personal enjoyment?
Until someone produces a graph that charts people leaving as well as new people signing up over the length of time the game has been available, charts like that at the top of the thread are essentially garbage. Just assuming that people are leaving without taking into account the other side of the equation is bad thinking, faulty math and generally useless. Blizzard knows those numbers and it's unlikely that we ever will which is why this is a completely useless argument. Hardly anyone talks about the lack of new players and the reasons for it and it's a major component of how this sort of analysis works.
"...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."
You're entitled to your opinion, of course. I happen to think it's wrong.
Part of the problem with Cataclysm was that its themes were all over the place. There was very little consistency with the expansion as a whole. We started off in one of two zones that were very "elemental destruction" in nature but by the time we hit 85 we were palling around with idiot Orcs and Dwarves in Twilight Highlands or playing one gigantic pop-culture Indiana Jones ripoff in Uldum. By 85, I didn't feel like Deathwing mattered. I didn't feel like Nefarian or Ragnaros could do anything of consequence... In short, I didn't feel like the world was on the brink of cataclysm.
At least Mists took a theme and stuck with it from beginning to end just as Wrath did before Cataclysm. Item design and artwork, world design and artwork, quest design and even patch and additional content design stayed within this theme. The Sha played a role from beginning to end. A SoO obtained item still looks the part of "Pandaria". Maybe the Pandaren themselves were a little too "kid friendly", but Mists was far more cohesive than Cataclysm.
That said, I still rate it slightly under Wrath because at least Wrath felt epic in scope. The Wrathgate and the reclaiming of Undercity are still some very fond, epic, memories of the quest path of Wrath. Mists doesn't feel quite as epic; Neither the opening of the Gate to the Vale of the Eternal Blossoms nor the Vale's destruction had the same level of awe-inspiring story as the Wrathgate/Undercity. Additionally, creating Mists' old god story and the Sha from whole cloth in order to support an expansion based around an easter egg from the RTS was a bit of a stretch. But I'll still take it over Cataclysm a million times over.
Last edited by Captiosus; 2013-12-03 at 12:44 AM.
There isn't some physical law of the universe that says that a game's popularity can only last so long. There's no reason the sub numbers couldn't have kept climbing or remained steady after WotLK. The simple fact of the matter is that the game just started sucking more after Cataclysm came out, apparently. Players weren't happy, so they left.
However, WoW could certainly earn back the subs if Blizzard brought back what made the game so enthralling in the first place. After all, it's still the best MMORPG out there I think.
Regardless of the logic and how much such a graph holds at this point it is largely being brought up at least in my opinion as tit for tat. For me at least it gives some fun seeing those who used the graph in Cata as their bases of argument and trying to continue justifying their point while saying the graph doesnt mater in MoP lets me know that these players are full of themselves.
So far Blizzard has only given us a small insight into what is happening on the losses and gains. Start of Cata the developers said at least as many players played as are playing making it about 12 million players quitting within about 6 years. WotLK was also noted to have had a slow down in new subscribers which ended up matching losses in WotLK. This lead for the push for the old world revamp and so much focus on getting new players in and caught up to end game with the lack of grinds reflecting that and overall endgame content taking a hit. Even marketing changed to at least what looked like to me that the big campaigns that was all over the place in WotLK quieted down. MoP came in with a focus to keep current players busy with lots of end game to do and lots of slow grinds compared to Cata and even WotLK.
I dont expect more detailed info from Blizzard until far more years later where the info largely becomes irrelevant for discussion going forward. Blizzard already told us a bunch at the start of Cata and players like to ignore it anyways. With the way the developers talked about Cata it was going to lose subs regardless and it was more about how much subs.
Last edited by nekobaka; 2013-12-03 at 04:21 AM.
My only problem with their sub numbers is they do not distinguish between the never close accounts of China which are always considered active and the western markets which are considered closed upon non-payment. I understand it makes their numbers look fantastic, but I wish they would show how well or poorly its doing in the western market.
...not normal!? That's actually true as it's AMAZING it's not fallen further years ago.
If it makes you feel better, I've always thought that telling only half the story is bogus. More detail about churn would be really interesting to me personally but that will never happen as it's TMI for competitors. There are clearly fewer new players joining up. I doubt if I would join up today myself with Rift configured like it is. Their model is very attractive if you're new to MMO's.
"...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."
WoW hit it's peak. But it could've hit it's peak at 14-15 million if they didn't keep trying to please everyone and stuck with the same formula they originally made the game. Not to mention the decline would be much more steady and not so steep like 1.3 million or 1 million or 1.8 million lost. More like -50K +700K -100K etc..
That's a great statement but not remotely able to be backed up by any semblance of fact. There is nothing to prove that they hadn't already burned through what would have been their hardcore audience and that sticking to the same formula without innovation wouldn't have ultimately led to much larger drops in numbers like 2.6 million or 5 million lost. Maybe without some of those changes (which were already happening in wrath, the peak of the game) would have meant the peak would have been 9 or 10 million. You can't create numbers and causation where none exists.