WoW Down to 10.3M Subscribers, PTR Build 14966, Class Balance Q&A, TCG Art

Maybe D3 and Titan? xD Is Expansion a "Major release"? Also they say "at least two"!

don't worry i'm still there, won't loose me fast

Originally Posted by Hobb

That's also where over half of WoW's total population is from as well. Here's a breakdown from 2008 when Blizzard released sub numbers, "As of January 22, 2008, World of Warcraft has more than 10 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia."

This is actually a good point. A good chunk of WoW's players are from China, it's good to keep those numbers in perspective. Much of WoW's sub bragging rights come from China, so a huge loss from China is eye-brow raising.

Not really a surprise. Why would they make a deal to commit to keep subscribing for a year if that wasn't the case?As far as China goes, with the ease of gaining money now, the increased security measures and expansions being released over there way behind the release in other countries it's cut down on the China farm-for-profit community, which I suspect was fairly significant.The good news is that we're getting around the same amount of subscribers as from back in the day, and that could make for a better experience as far as the community goes, though there will of course still be bad apples...but maybe not as many. One can hope anyway.

I'd probably go back for a bit if they actually did a decent update to the game for once...

I mean, even just updating the character models (which they've refused to do for way too long) would probably make me come back for a month.

If you aren't a raider and you're still playing Cata then I would really like to know how you've managed to do the same thing every day for the past year without ripping your hair out, or falling asleep at the keyboard.

Originally Posted by Hobb

That's also where over half of WoW's total population is from as well. Here's a breakdown from 2008 when Blizzard released sub numbers, "As of January 22, 2008, World of Warcraft has more than 10 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia."

Ummm so really it's 1/4 of the population, and in Asia in general. Not China alone. Okay, just making sure.

I was one of the subscribers they lost, and I don't live in China.

Originally Posted by MrWizard

I'd probably go back for a bit if they actually did a decent update to the game for once...

I mean, even just updating the character models (which they've refused to do for way too long) would probably make me come back for a month.

If you aren't a raider and you're still playing Cata then I would really like to know how you've managed to do the same thing every day for the past year without ripping your hair out, or falling asleep at the keyboard.

6/7 Heroic FL and I have NOTHING to do other than level alts and raid.
6 Level 85's
3 Level 70's

Oh and I HAVE fallen asleep at the keyboard multiple times... :/

WoW is just getting long in the tooth. You can't play in the same world, with roughly the same mechanics and with the same background story for 8 years…The fact that all the major heroes from Warcraft has been desecrated by a story which looks like written by a 12-y old doesn't help either.Look at SWTOR : copycat gameplay, not many new ideas brought to the table besides companions and voice acting, less classes (8 advanced classes with their mirror in the other faction) than Vanilla WoW, inferior UI (no macros, no addons, no combat log, no target cast bars, no focus, no moveable action bars, no custom chat channels), standard PvE encounters (normal and heroic versions of dungeons/raids, "don't stand in the fire" / "focus the adds" mechanics), typical PvP (secure 3 points and collect resources, a "Strand of the Ancient"-like BG, bring back the flag/huttball) and still, I can't wait to give a shot at the final release. SWTOR, despite lacking in a lot of areas, is attractive if only for the sheer pleasure to discover a new world, because story arc is 10 times better than WoW one and because you can look at your toon without seeing a pixelated soup (that, despite SWTOR being far from top notch in this regard). Having fun and get awe-struck by story is all I want and WoW no longer deliveries that.

Unless they provide exact numbers, 'most subs lost in China' could be as little as 51% of the cancelled subs. It doesn't surprise me that they're going to do their best to spin any bad news. Investors in today's markets are a fickle bunch.

Originally Posted by tweaker

More like 800k chinese goldfarmer beat by the competition and Guardian pup

You get more gold by buying it for real monies than you will get gold by buying n selling the pup. So no, this doesn't threaten gold farmers, I doubt they would buy n sell pet, because then they would loose money. 800 000 people are too many to be gold farmers, maybe you should cut down on stereotyping the Chinese?

Wednesday ( reset day) 6/7 and pusing on Raggy , 25-man guild and we have only 17 members online...................... Simply ppl get bored to spend 2 hours/per week simple to do some raids so they not even login on . So perhaps this doesn't count , but have a big influence in others ppls . So simply qq, 4 weeks now we're doing hcs mode like 23 and 22/20 ppl... but today only 17 ppl online so we got screwed up for the rest of the week ..............................

To be expcted

Originally Posted by Zushakon

Wow is losing subs because that is normal for such a game.People will just take this to QQ about things they dont like .. wich is ridiculous.Back in the days i saw wow players as pro intelligent people .. these days i see them as spoiled little brats.

Very much this. When people were at C'thun or clearing Naxx in Vanilla, i had MAD respect for those guys. Guys clearing hardmode LK or Deathwing for that matter...not so much.

Please buy a 1 year sub so you can sit in Orgrimmar or Stormwind waiting for MoP that will be released right as your 1 year sub ends next fall.

it'll pick up with new content and so forth. blizz knows now they gotta release stuff asap or ppl will just leave

Look, I quit about 6 months ago, and obviously losing 1.7m subs in three quarters isn't good, but look at the bloody headline - WoW still has 10.3m paid subscribers!! 10 effing million!!

The makers of every other MMO on the market would kill for even half that number. Oh, and the problem with WoW is the fact developers keeping using the word "cool". This makes them do stupid things like adding loads of "cool stuff" rather than perfecting what was already a brilliant game. It's been downhill from SWP when the game had integrity. Since then, all changes have just been reaction to cry-babies and then a counter-reaction when other people cried about those changes. So babies wanted to raid without the effort and Blizz gave them NAXX and ICC. Then hardcore players cried because everyone could see raids so Blizz made Cata raids almost impossible to PUG initially. Same thing with epic gear. And Death Knights buggered the game in so many ways it's hard to believe any real thought went into them. It should make any continuing subscribers really excited about the Monk class

Originally Posted by Collected

Will be two titles, Diablo 3 and Panda.I wish they'd announce Titan already. Come on guys.. give us something to get excited about.

It will be Diablo 3 and Heart of the Swarm, Panda I bet is in the 'might' category. Although, if they want to hold the sub base I'd say it better move into the for sure category it would be a long stretch to hold for a year on 4.3

How many times is there going to be an excuse for blizz losing subs, " well it's slow, the sky is blue, a penguin in antartica dies, so our subs are effected" No this game is garbage now. This game is a washed down version of what it used to be, everything has become so basic, so dumbed down. Me and my wife are 2 of those 800k lost. Blizz needs to look at it's product, and realize were they went wrong. Here's a clue for them...4.1.

Originally Posted by Åmbulance

How many times is there going to be an excuse for blizz losing subs, " well it's slow, the sky is blue, a penguin in antartica dies, so our subs are effected" No this game is garbage now. This game is a washed down version of what it used to be, everything has become so basic, so dumbed down. Me and my wife are 2 of those 800k lost. Blizz needs to look at it's product, and realize were they went wrong. Here's a clue for them...4.1.

It started going wrong when the devs lost sight of the fact that the community knew more about the mechanics and the min/max of skills/talents/etc, than they did. Everything, since the first patch after WOTLK has been in this quasi-attempt to try and regain control of things, while all the time having to hold off the angry mob. They put way too much thought into the mechanics of things instead of keeping it simple and clean. And when the min/max'rs finally started showing them parsed data that was different from the data that they were getting, they got all uppity and patronizing. And you can tell that they knew they were wrong, because the attitude just kept getting worse and worse. They knew that their sample size/data was just not on part with what the other 11 million people were getting. It's hard to play a game that boasts having 8 classes when only 5 of them work from one patch to the next. People want variety and people want a steady consistent flow. In short, Blizz lost sight of where it was and where it wanted to go, and now no longer cares because it will simply use WoW as a cash cow. But with SC2 not getting a good review from a large portion of people (read: Those not in China/Korea), and Diablo III having extremely bad reviews from its beta-testing, Blizzard now is looking like IBM from the old PC days....not interested in what the user wants. I'm pretty sure they will take notice when SWTOR and GW2 come out and their population is reduced to less than 2 million (in North America/Europe).