World of Warcraft lost another 300,000 Subscribers last quarter, Patch 4.3 this year
Activision Blizzard latest earning call revealed that World of Warcraft lost another 300,000 subscribers last quarter, following the loss of 600k subscribers announced last quarter.

In this conference call we also learned that:


  • The next patch will include "major raid and dungeon content", we can most likely expect a raid and a 5-man from Patch 4.3
  • Patch 4.3 will be the "largest content update since Cataclysm"
  • It will be released later this year, which means that we can probably expect a PTR soon.

It's also worth noting that despite the loss of players, Mike Morhaime pointed out that the new trial system resulted in an increase in new account creations. For more details on the earning call, go check the coverage on sites such as Venturebeat or Gamasutra.


BlizzCon 2011 Virtual Ticket Now On Sale
The Blizzcon virtual ticket is now available, it seems that some people already got their Murkablo Companion Pet by buying the ticket early. (See this forum thread. However, this is most likely a bug and pets might be removed very soon.



Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Want to experience the panel discussions, tournaments, game-related announcements, and all the excitement of BlizzCon 2011 from the comfort of your own home? Then be sure to check out the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket!

The BlizzCon 2011 Virtual Ticket is now available for purchase around the world for $39.99 USD (pricing may vary by region). Virtual Ticket coverage will be available as a multi-channel Internet stream and also via Pay Per View on DIRECTV in the United States, granting viewers a front-row seat to all of the action on the show floor including exclusive interviews, demos, and more!

New DIRECTV subscribers in the United States who sign up for DIRECTV service between now and September 25 through www.directv.com/blizzcon will receive this year's BlizzCon Virtual Ticket coverage for free. Existing DIRECTV customers will be able to purchase the event on DIRECTV Pay Per View for $39.99 beginning Monday, October 10. Visit www.directv.com/blizzcon for more info.

DIRECTV customers who order the Pay Per View event through DIRECTV will receive the multi-channel Internet stream at no extra charge, and those who order the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket will also receive this year’s to-be-announced BlizzCon-exclusive World of Warcraft and StarCraft II in-game items.

Don't miss out! To learn more about the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, head on over to our official BlizzCon 2011 Live Stream page or read the FAQ.

Cenarion Hatchling Raises More Than $1.9 Million for Japan Earthquake Relief
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of World of Warcraft players around the world who purchased the Cenarion Hatchling pet, we’ve raised a total of more than $1.9 million USD to support the ongoing earthquake and tsunami relief efforts in Japan. In May, we announced that for every Cenarion Hatchling purchased by July 31, 2011, 100% of the $10 USD adoption fee would be going to assist victims of this disaster -- and the community responded by opening up their hearts and wallets wide. Thanks again for your support and for helping to make an impact on the lives of those affected by these events.

To learn more about the Pet Store, please visit the Pet Store FAQ.

Diablo III Beta Profile Update
Originally Posted by Zarhym (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The beta test approaches! We’ve just updated our System Check program and would like everyone to update their Battle.net Beta Profile information by running the new one. You should do this regardless of whether there have been hardware changes made to your system.

You can run the new System Check by visiting the Beta Profile settings of your Battle.net account:

https://www.battle.net/account/manag...a-profile.html

I don’t have a Beta Profile
If you haven’t yet created a Beta Profile on your Battle.net account you’ll be presented with two download options, PC and Mac, for our System Check program. Running the program will present you with the Beta Test Opt-In Agreement, and once you agree to that it will immediately query basic computer specification information such as your type of video card, processor, and RAM. Clicking the Send button will then upload the shown information to your account.

On your Beta Profile page, you’ll want to ensure you at least have “Diablo Universe” checked for future testing, if not StarCraft and Warcraft as well. That’s it! You’re now eligible for future beta test opportunities.

I have a Beta Profile
If you’ve previously uploaded your system info you should use the links to download the new System Check program for PC or Mac and update your system info. Run the program, read through the Beta Test Opt-In Agreement that appears, and once you agree to that the program will immediately query your basic computer specification information. Click Send and the program will automatically update your profile with your system specifications. You’ll remain opted in for whichever beta tests you’ve previously selected, and you can change these selections on your Beta Profile page at any time.

Having current system specifications and checking the franchise boxes to express interest in beta testing our future products does not guarantee your entry into the beta test. We will grant a very limited number of people entry from the entire pool of those interested, based on their system specifications and other factors. While having an official Battle.net Beta Profile is one way to potentially get in, we’ll have information on other ways to increase your chances as we draw closer to the beta test.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Lack of Blue Posts / "Where are the Blues?"
The whole team is here today. We're actively reading the forums whenever we can while working on other tasks. :)(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Repair costs too expensive?
Repair costs have always scaled with item level. If anything, I'd say this game has a burden of too much gold out in the economy, rather than too little. 4 deaths in 1 5-player Heroic dungeon run is well above what you should expect as an average, and 100 gold is pretty easy to come by at level 85. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

New Warcraft Fan Art
The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with five new pieces of fan artwork set within the Warcraft universe.




"The Raid" Livestream on August 6th @ 6:00PM PST
Blue Loon Films, the studio behind the upcoming World of Warcraft documentary, The Raid, has announced that the live stream of their film will take place on August 6th.

The Raid follows a guild over the course of a few months and features a host of content including in-game and at-home interviews with the players.

To celebrate the release of the film, TypeFrag will be giving away:


  • 1 desktop PC by Doghouse Systems
  • 5 high-end gaming headsets
  • 25, 25-person Ventrilo servers

The PC features an Intel i5 Quad-Core CPU, Windows 7 64-bit, 1TB HDD, 4GB RAM, 2 NVIDIA GTX 460 PCI-E video cards and more!

The live stream of The Raid will take place on August 6th at 6:00PM (PST) and is brought to you in part by TypeFrag, Gamebreaker.tv and Curse!

This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW Lost 300k Subscribers, Patch 4.3 this year, Blizzcon 2011 Tickets, Blue Posts started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 597 Comments
  1. planetchips's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MrShapatsky View Post
    I gave a reasonable answere, on why you were wrong with your point in my first reply
    *rereads 2nd post*

    No...you didn't? Reading news posts has no correlation to making comments like "Myself being from the upper tier of humanity (based on income and IQ) i just have to assume that it is the smart ones who are leaving first. "

    Quote Originally Posted by MrShapatsky View Post
    And I am pretty sure that most of the population on the planet agrees with me on that matter, because that wasn't something i made up. It is also a huge field of sience within the academic world on that matter, that would back my statement.
    "wasn't something i made up" If you're gonna make a comment like that, back it up with evidence. What field of science is this? What specific study? Any legit research you can link to?
  1. kmm777's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ishamaell View Post
    sweet, cant wait
    haha u created new account just to say this?
  1. pandaman's Avatar
    One thing that concerns me is, Blizzard seemed to randomly bring out the RAF changes a few weeks ago... Seems like that was a ploy to get people creating more accounts and artificially inflate the "subs" total...
  1. Papapwn's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Raniela View Post
    Yes i know that it was, but was it like these days? that a whole expansion gets cleared in 1 week or 2? ofc it wasn't, stuff was hard back then, and now its easy, ,at my point of veiew firelands has the most obvious and comon sence mechanic boss fights ever, even ragnaros hc is piss easy, "omg sulfuron smash,, move 2 yards to the sides, OMG ADDS... Wait, what adds? oh ... hunters one shotted them" (yes hunters are op now), is that hard? well, yes for healers only. they have all the job today
    Im glad your guild has downed heroic rag! Oh wait, no you have not. LOL

    Also world firsts were the same since Vanilla. Yes as much as it is these days. Only thing is that there are a few more guilds capable to compete in the top tier (raid more etc, not saying they are way more skilled in any way)

    Please stop talking rubbish. Atleast bring up valid points. The simple fact to why blizzard is losing subs is because the game is OLD and people are getting tired of repetitive content.

    If you think about it, when blizzard released Sunwell and the Isle of quel. Everyone was on the island for majority of their gametime either doing dailies or for world pvp. Atleast on my realm everyone was having fun there. This time blizzard releases firelands and the molten front. Everyone acts like pve carebears and hardly any world pvp. Then they complain why no world pvp etc. Fact is after the vendors are unlocked there is absolutely no reason to do the dailies. Dailies in TBC were a pretty good money maker. Now its slower than sitting in org and crafting reselling. They need to make dailies more rewarding to get people outside of their home towns. They need to readd world bosses. Sure its unfair but it brought excitement to the world. People would camp, fight for it and sometimes at 3AM you would see LFM kazzak etc simply cause its up.
  1. Eazy's Avatar
    Another EPIC fanart. The 5# one.
  1. Bahska's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Raniela View Post
    Yes i know that it was, but was it like these days? that a whole expansion gets cleared in 1 week or 2? ofc it wasn't, stuff was hard back then, and now its easy, ,at my point of veiew firelands has the most obvious and comon sence mechanic boss fights ever, even ragnaros hc is piss easy, "omg sulfuron smash,, move 2 yards to the sides, OMG ADDS... Wait, what adds? oh ... hunters one shotted them" (yes hunters are op now), is that hard? well, yes for healers only. they have all the job today
    I Guess dieing 500+ times to one boss means the fight is easy.
    Even the best guild in the world was quoted in saying this was the hardest fight they have seen in years.

    Please don't think a fight is easy based on pro's, now if the average person went in and 1 shot Rag Heroic then i would agree but that isn't happening.
    Your looking at the best guild's in the world ones that get payed to play and may play 15+ hours a day in the first few weeks of a patch, and taking that is everyone is clearing the content in 2 weeks.
    Im sorry but your wrong your higher than average guild may have cleared normals in a week but they were probably decked out in full heroic tier 11 gear, they weren't meant to spend weeks upon weeks in normals and burn out.
    That design was even on the PTR but it was seen as OMGEASYCONTENT, no it was meant to get the heroic guilds in heroics faster if they went through the effort in the previous tier heavily gearing.
    If you only went through normal's in tier 11 then your raids are normals otherwise by design you were rushed to heroics, to combat against burn out.
    There's gonna be people who rush to complete stuff first in any game that's what competition is, competition isn't a bad thing for any game and will always be there no matter what.
  1. Granyala's Avatar
    It makes me happy to see more people leaving the game. As sick and twisted as that sounds, maybe blizzard will wake the fuck up and make tier accessible to non-raiders like it was in WotLK. Or at least give casuals something to do with rewards that aren't recolored rehashed shit, while raiders get all the new shinies.
    Sorry to burst your bubble, dude, but T11 is as easy as MC Naxxramas was back in the 80s.

    Ulduar and ICC (with buff) were way WAY harder that T11 right now.So move your butt and go in there.

    Don't expect them to release Firelands on that niveau and to be able to just skip T11.

    After all casuals want content....


    what? they just want top tier epics?

    THEN ACQUIRE SKILL AND WORK FOR THEM LIKE US RAIDERS!
  1. Morillus's Avatar
    Beta profiler seems to think my graphics card has 9GB of RAM. :S
  1. Papapwn's Avatar
    Most of all they need to make EPIC items feel EPIC again. Its so easy nowadays. Bring back the epic feeling! Add world pvp dailies! Raid X town and kill X leader. Perhaps a board so the opposite faction know which of their leaders is for bounty and they can defend. Also this can apply to non capital cities to not cause major lag. Add reputation vendors for each of the new bgs. Make fresh content! Stop redoing and reintroducing old content. Doesnt matter if they have different abilities. People like seeing new names and a different environment.Also include tax ingame. There is way too much gold in the game atm and not enough gold sinks. I myself am at 500k+ after buying every gold sink and all new boe epics my character can use from firelands. Perhaps put a tax weekly so you loose gold and not just sit on it and keep building up. Or include more GOLD SINKS. This is cataclysm. 100k isnt hard to make honestly. I dont get how the mammoth was 16k in Wotlk and now most vendor mounts are 2-3k? (Guild vendor mounts, rep mounts etc) Make professions have bop mats that are hard to get for good items. Make people work to collect items and then the item is more rewarding. Perhaps including mats from bosses so some items remain rare! Stop catering everything to casuals. Blizzard went wrong after they changed the whole game into casual mode. Look at TBC. It was the perfect mix. Everybody loves TBC the most because it was balanced for both casuals and hardcore.
  1. centrius's Avatar
    As some ppl alread said, WoW has been around for a long time and alot of us have been in the loop since open beta and if you look at it that way, 6-7 years is a good run, for any game. But i think that WoW has had its peak. I wouldnt be supriced if they lost 2-3 milj more subs before next summer, or even more. But i dont think they will dip below 5 milj for a long time. SWTOR will take its chunk of ppl and so will D3, even though D3 will recycle players from WoW.

    On a side note, very impressed that the community raised such a big amount of money for Japan, gj.
  1. AVPaul's Avatar
    We told them what to do to stop losing subs thousands and thousands times but they are not listening. They are so obstinate.
  1. mmoc1e9e1a2368's Avatar
    "No king rules forever". I understand that WoW is declining, but do I care the least? No. WoW was and still is king in the mmo genre, for the past 7 years, and they still have plenty of time left on the throne. I enjoy the game and don't give a damn about what others say, more people should try that.
  1. ZeroWashu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by pandaman View Post
    There used to be a huge buzz around the raiding scene, for me Easy mode and Heroic mode killed this... raiding should be one difficulty, not an easy mode tacked on to appease bad players...
    I don't see one as easy mode, let do I see the non-heroic being there to appease bad players. What I do see is many water cooler hardcores who boast on message boards either directly or indirectly how great they are but I never seem to connect those people to the 7/7 heroic guilds. Go figure.

    Heroic modes exist simply because some groups are in another league from the vast majority of wow players. I figure its probably less than 2% of the player base who can hit these up when they are released and complete them. There are many who can't even complete them when the next iLevel drops because even gear cannot compensate for execution issues.
  1. mmocd503f3f477's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by planetchips View Post
    *rereads 2nd post*

    No...you didn't? Reading news posts has no correlation to making comments like "Myself being from the upper tier of humanity (based on income and IQ) i just have to assume that it is the smart ones who are leaving first. "



    "wasn't something i made up" If you're gonna make a comment like that, back it up with evidence. What field of science is this? What specific study? Any legit research you can link to?
    LOL shifting focus aren't we?

    What amazes me are the people who quit, but still hang around like a vulture, as if they have nothing better to do with their pathetic lives except gripe about a past hobby.
    What are we talking about now, me commenting on news or me being arrogant? When i said "Yes i am arrogant and now to your point" then you facepalmed and quoted your reply to me again. Then i responded and you shift back to that i am arrogant, how's it gonna be, you gonna be pissed at me because i comment news about a game i don't play anymore or because i was arrogant? Judging by the first reply i would naturally go with that i was commenting on news about a game that i don't play anymore but you jump back and forth i can't honestly tell what you want.

    Journalism and media and communication are two major scientific fields that studys everything around news, communication, public communication including news values and why people are interested in news and such. If you are interested in more info about all this, there are probably courses you take at your closest University or just visit an academic library and ask for a book about news, journalism or something like that.

    I've read: Paul Manning - News and news sources - a critical introduction. He is a doctor within the field at the university of Winchester.
  1. mmoce85cdeb601's Avatar
    ppl are quitting cos of empty servers (at least on my realm) and blizz isnt prepared to merge low pop servers, how can it be fair that someone who pays the same money as someone on a busy realm has less oppotunities ie not enough ppl online to make a pug grp most of the time, not all ppl have credit cards and are unable to move realms, its a shame that blizz is to slow to fix this problem.
  1. Shpetznaz's Avatar
    That blood elf.... O.O
  1. Beyond2's Avatar
    I'll go ahead and throw in one last reply to all the people telling me to "suck it up and raid if you want your tier gear" No. I'd rather unsub than be forced to do things I don't enjoy. That sub money can go to another game like League of Legends or something else. I'll say it again, clearer this time: I will not be forced by a GAME that required a MONTHLY FEE to do something I DO NOT FIND FUN to enjoy said game. Its a waste of money. And its funny, because you can argue your "tier should be raiders only derp derp" point on the forums all you want. I've spoken with my wallet. So have nearly a million others. Guess what blizzard is going to listen to? I'll give you a hint: It isn't the people on the forums, its the people who stopped paying. "YOU SHOULD HAVE TO WORK FOR IT YOU ENTITLED BLAH BLAH BLAH RAGE" Yes. I should. I had to work for my tier 9/10 in WotLK. It took me three months of grinding heroics to finish my sets. That's work. Sorry if you don't agree, but it is. That system worked, that system kept me playing. I do not give two fucks if you think I'm acting entitled. I'm a paying customer. Blizzard can either cater to me, and get my subscription fee, or they can ignore me, and i'll spend my money elsewhere. And no, this HAS worked in the past, it was called WotLK. I subbed through most of WotLK from the end of ulduar on. The system for tier worked from ToC onward - I had a gear set to obtain. I had a goal I could reach. This continued through ICC. If you wanted your vanity gear, you got it doing 25m raids, getting tokens, and what not.
  1. mmoc8aa4aedee7's Avatar
    Doesn't anyone else think it's strange that we're now talking about patch 4.3 JUST when Mists of Pandaria has been trademarked? And if you think they don't trademark patches, they do, I've seen a trademark on Secrets of Ulduar.
  1. ZeroWashu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by pandaman View Post
    One thing that concerns me is, Blizzard seemed to randomly bring out the RAF changes a few weeks ago... Seems like that was a ploy to get people creating more accounts and artificially inflate the "subs" total...
    RAF was horribly out of date, especially after they started to include BC content into the base subscription.
  1. mmocbeba583bd0's Avatar
    No wonder WoW is losing subscribers. Challenge is gone from game, the only challenge now is heroic raids, but that's a small part of game. MMO part is gone from game, it is now a single player game. People sit in cities, press a button to join instance with 4 NPCs (players from other realms they'll never see again), facerolling their way to end goal and spewing abuse (he'll never see those 4 players again, so why behave like a decent human?) as they go. It is still the best game out there, but its crap compared to what it used to be and what it could be. I wish it would improve.

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