The majority of WoW subscribers do not RAID or PVP.

[Sussex]

There isn't much to accept or reject, it's just the way things are.

But for any 'gamer' it should cause a few questions to arise in the back of their heads:

1. If 95% of the subscriber base does not participate in endgame activities then WoW's endgame can be scratched from the list as one of the qualities of the game that warrants it having such a large playerbase. When 6 million players just dabble in leveling up characters between levels 1 and 90 and show no interest in character progression beyond that point then why would any MMO put any development time and resources on an endgame at all?

2. If the main activity of the main mass of subscribers is to play around with "go kill 10 boar quests", then what is the point behind the recent trend of questioning quest quality in RPGs? There lately have been many reviews and column pieces on the state of quests in MMOs, praising the ingenuity of quests in Secret World and the storyline / voice-acted quests in Elder Scrolls Online, while at the same time bashing the dullness of WoW and Wildstar's typical: 'Go kill x boar'-type quests. Apparently the main mass of subscribers does not have a taste for 'quality'?

Holy SHIT! how did i not think of this before....it makes so much sense...what you said here is something ive never thought of before....but now its making more wonder why the fuk so much time is spent on endgame content when the majority of the subs dont even do it....shit....why dont they just focus on the start-mid game then? if the vast majority of people arent bothering with endgame.

[rda]

So what do they even do?

I doubt more than 5% of the population raids 3-5+ nights a week

I doubt more then 5% of the population actually does any sort of legit rated pvp


so what exactly are the huge majority of WoW subs doing in WoW...just casually leveling characters or something year round or are they just all gold farmers/bots from asia?

First, LFR / heroic scenarios. LFR once a week or so, and skipping weeks. There were numbers on that, I think it was something like ~35-50% did LFR at least once, so perhaps 15-20% do it regularly.

Second, unrated PVP, specifically, BGs. There were numbers on that, too, I think it's something like 20-25%, totally comparable to LFR.

Third, and perhaps biggest, just leveling chars, leveling professions and fooling around in the world. Quite a lot of people never reach max level, there were numbers on that as well, they were significant.

[Sussex]

People are often ignorant about how actually small the "majority" is

this doesn't make any sense

- - - Updated - - -

First, LFR / heroic scenarios. LFR once a week or so, and skipping weeks. There were numbers on that, I think it was something like ~35-50% did LFR at least once, so perhaps 15-20% do it regularly.

Second, unrated PVP, specifically, BGs. There were numbers on that, too, I think it's something like 20-25%, totally comparable to LFR.

Third, and perhaps biggest, just leveling chars, leveling professions and fooling around in the world. Quite a lot of people never reach max level, there were numbers on that as well, they were significant.

So the majority of WoW players are just doing LFR a few times and a lot never ever hitting max level.......so i dont get it...are these people just forgetting they have a WoW account and continue to get billed without realizing it? I just cant imagine how they could be stuck in that part of the game a long period of time without quitting.

[Téuntjûh]

So what do they even do?

I doubt more than 5% of the population raids 3-5+ nights a week

I doubt more then 5% of the population actually does any sort of legit rated pvp


so what exactly are the huge majority of WoW subs doing in WoW...just casually leveling characters or something year round or are they just all gold farmers/bots from asia?

Don't forget you don't need to raid 3-5+ nights a week to play endgame.
Myself, I raid one evening every +/- 2 weeks. I'll make sure I get into a decent pug and enjoy the end content my way.
And nope, I haven't killed Garrosh HC yet, but cleared the first 11 bosses on hc and that progress is enough for me.
I guess with me there are a lot of people that just occasionally enjoy the end content, for many different reasons.

[Lime]

this doesn't make any sense

But it does make sense.

Let me re-word what he's saying.

"People often think the majority is a lot larger than it actually is"

[Sussex]

Don't forget you don't need to raid 3-5+ nights a week to play endgame.
Myself, I raid one evening every +/- 2 weeks. I'll make sure I get into a decent pug and enjoy the end content my way.
And nope, I haven't killed Garrosh HC yet, but cleared the first 11 bosses on hc and that progress is enough for me.
I guess with me there are a lot of people that just occasionally enjoy the end content, for many different reasons.

im not familiar with how raiding is now, im just going back to how it was in vanilla/tbc where you were raiding for most days during the week to get anything done in +50 world guilds....usually had to be top 25 world to be farming content on 2 days per week in those times, and even then those guys would go 7 days a week if they had

[nekobaka]

Theme park MMO. Perhaps the problem with completionists and other who just have to have what they want when they want is that the game caters to a wide variety of players and not just them.

[Sussex]

But it does make sense.

Let me re-word what he's saying.

"People often think the majority is a lot larger than it actually is"

i dont "think" the majority dont pve or pvp.....I KNOW for a fact based on actual statistics freely available online

[rda]

So the majority of WoW players are just doing LFR a few times and a lot never ever hitting max level.......so i dont get it...are these people just forgetting they have a WoW account and continue to get billed without realizing it? I just cant imagine how they could be stuck in that part of the game a long period of time without quitting.

Here is example scenario, which I think happens fairly often:

A guy picks WoW. He fools around in a starting zone, gets out of it, then gets bored with the char ("he's too weak") and starts a new one. Then he discovers cooking or some other profession, spends some time on that. Then auction house. Then he sees someone plowing through mobs like he never could, sees heirlooms, asks where to get them and receives answer, decides to get serious, rerolls once again, tries to go to max level. Somewhere at level 50-60-70 he gets bored or distracted. He doesn't play WoW for a month. Etc, this goes on. This is half a year easily and can go on and on until the guy jump ships into another MMO or just loses interest.

[MoanaLisa]

First, LFR / heroic scenarios. LFR once a week or so, and skipping weeks. There were numbers on that, I think it was something like ~35-50% did LFR at least once, so perhaps 15-20% do it regularly.

Second, unrated PVP, specifically, BGs. There were numbers on that, too, I think it's something like 20-25%, totally comparable to LFR.

Third, and perhaps biggest, just leveling chars, leveling professions and fooling around in the world. Quite a lot of people never reach max level, there were numbers on that as well, they were significant.

I'm sure that Blizzard is aware of this but it's something of a mystery why they continue to emphasize the things they do while they have largely ignored the many activities that the majority engage in. If you break down the numbers into discrete activities, perhaps all of the stuff that forums generally don't count as endgame are split so many ways that it's difficult to tell. Personally, the lack of quick and relatively accessible dungeons in the last two expansions have hurt them. The reasons for that were different between Cataclysm and Mists but nonetheless, compared to what people enjoyed in Wrath, that piece of the game has been a letdown for many.

[Lime]

i dont "think" the majority dont pve or pvp.....I KNOW for a fact based on actual statistics freely available online

Thanks for the random thought. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with what I just said...

[rda]

I'm sure that Blizzard is aware of this but it's something of a mystery why they continue to emphasize the things they do while they have largely ignored the many activities that the majority engage in. If you break down the numbers into discrete activities, perhaps all of the stuff that forums generally don't count as endgame are split so many ways that it's difficult to tell. Personally, the lack of quick and relatively accessible dungeons in the last two expansions have hurt them. The reasons for that were different between Cataclysm and Mists but nonetheless, compared to what people enjoyed in Wrath, that piece of the game has been a letdown for many.

I agree completely. I'd love it if they did way less raids and way more instances / scenarios / brawler guilds / timeless instances (where you go to an old instance and you gear is scaled down to its level) / daily hubs / rares + chests / pet battles / something good and new with professions or whatever, roughly speaking.

[evansp]

My wife has been working on the same 4 toons for for about 5 years and none of them are max level. She plays a few hours a weeks and when she does play it's professions, wandering around looking at stuff, pretty much anything but leveling. Me I rush my main to max level for end game then my alts I take my time on and check things out. Ehhh to each their own.

[Nihilist74]

I am an altaholic. I love to level a lot of characters. I love to play all the tank classes. I like playing warlock a lot. I also play rogue, hunter, shaman, priest and mage. I have about 30 level 90 characters and most of them have about a 520 item level or higher. About half of my level 90s are horde. My alliance toons are in a guild full of a lot of nice people who are not very good. I tried to help them improve but they don't listen.
I love my horde toons but I have never found a horde guild that I fit in with. I have not been playing horde as long as alliance.
I do lfr to try and get the best gear possible. I spam heroic dungeons to convert justice points to honor for gear. I have started my own groups in oque. I have tanked and dpsed flex 1. Most of my runs have been pretty decent.
I rarely pvp. I am looking forward to the skirmish version of arena in WOD.
If i found a guild full of people I really liked and got along with, I would be more of a serious raider. I would probably be more into arena too if I could find regular people to do it with that I liked. One day I did lot of arena matches on my wind walker monk in 2s with 522 honor gear. I felt i did pretty well. I probably won 40 percent of my matches.
I really cant stand most of the players. They have immature elitist attitudes. They don't want to help anyone get better.
I play wow because its a great action rpg game. I think its the best action rpg game there is so far. I don't play wow because its a multi-player game.
Games like skyrim and oblivion are not bad. WOW is a lot better than games like oblivion and skyrim because the amount of classes and class abilities. The race choices, the amount of dungeons, the large amount of quests and the big world of azeroth also make wow the best action rpg. I also feel like the interface, controls, camera views and customization options in wow are so much better than any other game.
Anyways that is what people like me do who are not serious raiders or pvpers.

[Theholypally]

So what do they even do?

I doubt more than 5% of the population raids 3-5+ nights a week

I doubt more then 5% of the population actually does any sort of legit rated pvp


so what exactly are the huge majority of WoW subs doing in WoW...just casually leveling characters or something year round or are they just all gold farmers/bots from asia?

Where do your stats even come from.

[Amerissis]

So what do they even do?

I doubt more than 5% of the population raids 3-5+ nights a week

I doubt more then 5% of the population actually does any sort of legit rated pvp


so what exactly are the huge majority of WoW subs doing in WoW...just casually leveling characters or something year round or are they just all gold farmers/bots from asia?

Well, I'm one of those people that doesn't like raiding nor PvP, although I did raid a bit occasionally and also did LFR. So I'm not exactly what you're looking for, but close enough. I level alts, lots of them, hunt achievements, collect pets and battle them, solo some old raids and dungeons for fun and giggles (and because I've mostly never seen them before), play the AH, do profession stuff, dailies and reputation grinds and then log off. There is SO much to do besides raiding and PvP! That's also why the majority doesn't whine about 12 months of the same raids

[Sussex]

Here ill give you guys an example in cliff notes.


-I got a friend into WoW at the start of Cataclysm
-I leveled with him and taught him about everything in WoW, I taught him about keybinds & macros & addons from the day he logged into WoW so he skipped all the stages of being a keyboard turner, clicker and player who doesn't take advantage of macros/ui etc.
-He learned very quickly and even made his own UI for himself and became very skilled at the game.
-We basically leveled from 1 to 85 without BOAs and without RAF bonus exp within 48 hours.
-I showed him professions and he got them maxed out
-Paid for his epic flying training ASAP
-First he wanted to PvP and with Tol-Barad were able to get him fully geared in no time.
-He was enjoying random battlegrounds for a few weeks and was doing very well for being such a new player, he had adapted very well to the keybinds/playstyle of WoW.


But after that he just got bored suddenly, he asked about PvE or doing rated PvP and I told him it's very time consuming and that he will have to do X,Y,Z etc. He tried looking for RBG team but couldn't find one as he was a new player and unknown on the server so he quickly got bored of looking and gave up. After that he asked about raiding...and I told him well if he can't be bothered finding the time to do RBG he will never be able to do endgame raiding because its very time consuming for the average raider, unless you're in a top world guild where everything is killed fast...theres a lot of dying over and over etc.

After that he just found himself standing around stormwind doing nothing....and he said "so is this it?" and I said...well yeah unless you wanna level alts or do dailies or farm stuff then you gotta be raiding or pvping. He decided to try leveling a few characters, he got a few more chars to 85...but then the same process happened after he hit max level....he got REALLY bored with the game because he kept noticing he had nothing left to do after hitting max level unless he was going to be doing serious endgame content.

After that he just quit.

This all took place over only just about a 8 week period lol, he hasn't played WoW since...and there's nothing I can say to get him back...now he just thinks its a boring as fuk game unless you're in a super raid guild.

[Lime]

-snip-

I hope that wasn't in response to the guy asking for proof of your claims... Because if you just labeled an anecdote as proof... well, then this thread is in for a bad time.

I, as well as anyone else here, could construct an anecdote to nullifies all of the points that you made with yours and it would be just as valid as yours.

[BHD]

There isn't much to accept or reject, it's just the way things are.

But for any 'gamer' it should cause a few questions to arise in the back of their heads:

1. If 95% of the subscriber base does not participate in endgame activities then WoW's endgame can be scratched from the list as one of the qualities of the game that warrants it having such a large playerbase. When 6 million players just dabble in leveling up characters between levels 1 and 90 and show no interest in character progression beyond that point then why would any MMO put any development time and resources on an endgame at all?

2. If the main activity of the main mass of subscribers is to play around with "go kill 10 boar quests", then what is the point behind the recent trend of questioning quest quality in RPGs? There lately have been many reviews and column pieces on the state of quests in MMOs, praising the ingenuity of quests in Secret World and the storyline / voice-acted quests in Elder Scrolls Online, while at the same time bashing the dullness of WoW and Wildstar's typical: 'Go kill x boar'-type quests. Apparently the main mass of subscribers does not have a taste for 'quality'?

3. What does this mean for the future of the game or it's development cycle when 95% of the playerbase, 6 million players, are just happy with no new content and happy to keep on playing the same quests from L1 to 90, wether or not a new expansion or new endgame content releases? Doesn't it threaten the livelihood of the more dedicated gamer, who does put an interest in endgame raiding? Doesn't it threaten him to know that the market is ruled by a majority of customers who have no interest in the type of content he would be interested in as a more dedicated gamer?

1. Legit question. If those statistics are correct I have no idea why they focus so much on raiding. Maybe it's just that the PvE crowd is very loud with its opinions. However, not taking part in high rated pvp or heroic raiding doesn't mean people have no interest in character progression. Gear isn't the only character progression that exists, this is a roleplaying game after all. Reputations and achievements from things like Brawler's Guild can be seen as character progression.

2. People can question the quality of quests while still preferring it to raiding or PvPing. Personally I love raiding but I can't be arsed to keep a schedule around my hobby, so I have quest achievements and other solo things to go for.

3. You seem to be under the impression that if someone isn't raiding or fighting for glad they're only bothered with leveling alts, and that they are happy with how dull most quests in WoW are. This just isn't true. I only play the game to farm pets, mounts, new mogs, reputations etc. I do LFR once in a while if it gives rep or if I need better gear to farm things at max level. Add playing the AH and pet battles into that too and suddenly there's a lot to do. There are plenty of things to do as a solo player in this MMO, and MoP added more than ever.

Some of the things don't require max level, but it's not like I'd stay at level 50 just cuz. While I enjoy leveling up characters, I still think WoW's questing is inferior to that of other games and they should improve it instead of just buffing the XP you get so you can bypass it.

[Rappy]

The MAJORITY

I think we need to define majority, followed by discussions on absolutes.

but OT: Wow for me is just to chill and enjoy what I feel like doing, no real plans or structure. I only play with friends/relax until xpac.