WoW Down to 8.3 Million Subscribers

Originally Posted by crakerjack

It won't ever go back to original, that changed right before wotlk... when activison and blizzard merged. They took the entire dev team off of WoW and put them on Titan. That hard, challenging, fun experience we all went through when playing wow in vanilla/TBC will likely be the same in Titan which is why I'm really excited for it.

I have a feeling you're going to be very, very disappointed with Titan. Maybe not initially, but it won't take long for you to become disillusioned with it.

Originally Posted by segoplout

Are you SERIOUSLY asking that?? That's just blinkered view and not being in reality. The whole game has COMPLETELY lost ANY sense of adventure, like AT ALL! It's all one mechanic that you have to go in and do every day. There is no twist to the tale, no serendipity, no adversity now. It's just literally, you are in one room, push buttons, other room, do the lottery, do the lucky dip, oh today is not the day but I am addicted to the RNG and potential of me getting that thing i want, that I don't know why I want.

There is no game left. Why don't people get this. Why are there millions of threads on the internet about people reminiscing about how they loved the game and now it's just a mess? It's not nostalgia, we have done this thread for months. It's because they made some unfounded and experimental decisions to make some changes to the game that completely ALIENATED those that made the game popular in the first place. And there is ZERO light at the end of the tunnel, we just have to put up with it. So those that loved the game come back from time to time and see if it's good and they are stuck there for a month and this adds to the overall player pop figures. But this is not realistic. Yes some still love the game, it's 2013. Some people love Bieber. It's a taste thing. Unfortunately, many MMO players are quite into gaming in a fairly serious capacity, passionate. And when this experience is cheapened, they run a mile. But they run a mile and wonder why they have to run and what happened to the great game. Why was it taken away?

Very well said. WoW currently is like assembly line work. The good news is it's not too late to go back. I've cancelled my sub a at the start of MoP, but I still think WoW, inherently, is a great game. I just couldn't stomach the whole Asian marketing scene and the repetitiveness of dailies. It was utterly nauseating.

The biggest mistake Blizzard made, was making dailies virtually compulsory and LFR. Now hold on, casuals are important, heck, I'm a casual myself. But what they did with LFR is completely remove the 'epicness' or raiding. Raiding should be about growth, progress, about forming a group and sticking together through hardships. Now it's just: "Queue up and let's get this over with quickly so I can use my coins, grab an epic and go do something fun."

I'm not going to pretend I've got all solutions, but I certainly think to know how most players experience dailies, LFR and current dungeons: A nuisance they'd rather not do, but feel compelled to.

A friend and I enjoyed 2 manning BT and SWP to gather transmog gear more than all new content thrown at us.

Let's get something straight though: the game ain't dying. 8.3 mil subs is still a lot, more than any other mmo has and will reach in the near future. The fact that the game is 'old' has nothing to do with it - as all those new triple trash A mmos have already proven. Blizzard have to sit down and think very hard about what is actually fun and what isn't.

the game is very old, ofc it will die out eventually. it will still be profitable with 2 million subs. but there are so many other games out now that are far superior than wow,that it makes no sense playing wow again if you quit.
They destroyed 25man raids, and that was it imo.

I've read alot of valid arguments. Most of them make sense. The only thing that bugs me, is the fact blizz decided to stuff an asian inspired theme down our throat, in order to please their asian market. And it's this asian marked that appperently has the biggest loses in subscriptions ... go figure.

It don't matter how many subscriptions they lost ... it's still by far the best mmo out there!

But it's time to start merging servers, consider some form of ftp, and roll out the annual pass subscriptions with garantied access in Titan beta ;-)

Not surprised. Entire expansion has been a destruction of casual raid guilds. People like playing with their friends. They like playing with people they enjoy hanging out with. The entire mentality of MoP is...get good players or go run LFR. Leaving guilds who are more casual and are in it to have fun...to sit and grind on the first couple bosses of a raid for entire patch. Then get told when its old content...here we'll make it easier for you...keep running this old shit while people that are better than you move on to current stuff.
Killed off alts. Mired people in dailies.
The entire expansion has been shit.

I guess most people are ignoring the most important part.

Most of those losses were in CHINA. CHIIIIIIIIIINA. Repeat, CHINA.

These numbers mean nothing to anyone else. Sub figures in the US, Europe and everywhere else are going to be relatively stable. The sky is not falling, get over yourselves, calm down and enjoy the game. And if you don't, then why are you still on a WoW oriented site?

Originally Posted by segoplout

And when this experience is cheapened, they run a mile. But they run a mile and wonder why they have to run and what happened to the great game.

And they run a mile and find no such MMORPG anymore. Wonder why.

Originally Posted by Brakthir

You know they're not obligated to do whatever you want them to do right? It's not your game. It's their game. It's not arrogance when you disagree with the direction their game is going in.

tl;dr: MMOs is a slowly dying breed. MOBAs are the new poster child of online gaming.

I'm not so up myself I think they should do what I want, but the tone of their posts is shocking. They are so out of touch with the playerbase. Most of thier responses to criticism boiled down to:

Yeah we know players dont like it, but we want you to do it, so we are going ot force you to, and you will learn to like it....

um, no, I'll unsub.

Its the attitude not the actual decision that pissed me off.

I really enjoyed wow, but between a load of decisions I did not agree wiht and the attitude of Bliz, I decided to quit. Everyone makes their own choice. I did nnot leave MMOs, like a load of other people I know we moved on, currently enjoying GW2, and now getting into neverwinter.

The game genre is more pluralistic nowadays, the time of Bliz being the god of the MMO space and people worshipping at its alter is long gone. Either appreciate your players, or lose them, there are many options open for us now.

It's funny to see those who are scared for the end of WoW not knowing what to do after, after nearly a decade devotion to the same game.
Well here's a headsup, it's gonna end sooner or later, you'll not play this game till your fifties.
This drop says a lot, even if its only for the east, it's a 14% drop in a quarter and if Blizzard doesn't act it will be another 14% the next quarter.
You might think that 8.3 is still a lot but don't forget they are also staffed accordingly and if the numbers drop to 5 mil rest assured people start losing their jobs.
I hope for Blizzard they can turns this around and come up with something amazing but I feel it's almost impossible as a strong force of the original team works on "Titan".

Originally Posted by Durandro

I guess most people are ignoring the most important part.

Most of those losses were in CHINA. CHIIIIIIIIIINA. Repeat, CHINA.

These numbers mean nothing to anyone else. Sub figures in the US, Europe and everywhere else are going to be relatively stable. The sky is not falling, get over yourselves, calm down and enjoy the game. And if you don't, then why are you still on a WoW oriented site?

Well then it´s even more ironic then, since they made MoP mostly to attract people from CHINA CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINA. Repeat CHINA. They seem to have failed on that one huh?

I've been off the WoW plantation for over two years.

During those two years I've given plenty of other companies my money and tried many "WoW killers".

After paying for RIFT, LOTRO, SWTOR, DCUO, TERA, GW2, and EVE Online during my ongoing WoW absence, the only companies that have earned my money are CCP, Arenanet, and Blizzard. Five months ago Trion would have been on that list.

Other than being the top dog everyone loves to hate, I cannot say many bad things about Blizzard especially after supporting some of the dysfunctional companies they compete against.

Originally Posted by Aerialslayer

Not that big of a deal. There are still more than 8 MILLION people playing the game. On top of that we had SC2: Heart of the Swarm release which was the #1 selling game this year.

Absolutely exactly,lol, just a subtle hint when you see how many subs were lost in the east, big freaking deal, this game will be around as long as Blizz wants it around.

This is not to say there has not been some issues with this xpac, as with any, I have been happy though.

Another very valid point someone mentioned was the dual lockouts in the east, that probably accounted for half of the lost subscribers there.

A 30% loss in active subscribers since 2010. You can't just blame that on "China".

What I want to know is how many of the people that played WoW in Vanilla/TBC/WotLK still play? Is it a reasonable amount, or has WoW's population shifted almost completely to people who joined in Cata/MoP?

Originally Posted by Durandro

I guess most people are ignoring the most important part.

Most of those losses were in CHINA. CHIIIIIIIIIINA. Repeat, CHINA.

These numbers mean nothing to anyone else. Sub figures in the US, Europe and everywhere else are going to be relatively stable. The sky is not falling, get over yourselves, calm down and enjoy the game. And if you don't, then why are you still on a WoW oriented site?

You clearly don't know anything about the business world.
You think that numbers dropping in China doesn't affect Blizzard's financial or staff?
How naive or uneducated are you?
Do you think people at Blizzard will just shrug their shoulders over this number?
THINK AGAIN.

I was expecting a tiny rise due to ToT being released in March.
Wow.

How do they count the subs?
Start of January, End of March, or whenever it's the highest between Q1?

Originally Posted by Guinzil

A 30% loss in active subscribers since 2010. You can't just blame that on "China".

What I want to know is how many of the people that played WoW in Vanilla/TBC/WotLK still play? Is it a reasonable amount, or has WoW's population shifted almost completely to people who joined in Cata/MoP?

All of the people I know who still play started in wolk or prior. I don't know anyone who started in cata or mop. A few people came back from vanilla for MoP.

---------- Post added 2013-05-08 at 04:27 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Kuthe

I was expecting a tiny rise due to ToT being released in March.
Wow.

How do they count the subs?
Start of January, End of March, or whenever it's the highest between Q1?

I was wondering this too.

Originally Posted by Kuthe

I was expecting a tiny rise due to ToT being released in March.
Wow.

How do they count the subs?
Start of January, End of March, or whenever it's the highest between Q1?

How do they count the subs? By hand.
They obviously have their own developed applications aside of WoW that can generate any data they would like to see.
They can run database queries on anything.

Originally Posted by Nelrock

Not surprised. Entire expansion has been a destruction of casual raid guilds. People like playing with their friends. They like playing with people they enjoy hanging out with. The entire mentality of MoP is...get good players or go run LFR. Leaving guilds who are more casual and are in it to have fun...to sit and grind on the first couple bosses of a raid for entire patch. Then get told when its old content...here we'll make it easier for you...keep running this old shit while people that are better than you move on to current stuff.
Killed off alts. Mired people in dailies.
The entire expansion has been shit.

Very hard to disagree with this.

For me, I warned them against using such a gimmicky theme as an expansion (you always get someone saying 'well yea but they used them in WCIII or well Taurens look like animals just as pandas are' and those people just don't get it, lines have been drawn and thankfully so, but Blizz dropped the ball on this and CATA, and I think they know it now, so there is going to be something positive happening as a result).

Exercise, go run around wildly, mount free in Hellfire Peninsula, then Howling Fjord/Borean, Mount Hyjal, then the start zone or any zone in MOP.

It's been going downhill for 3-4 years Blizz and FINALLY the stats back up what many of us sages have been telling you. But Blizz no listeny.

Until now..

Let's have the game back we all fell in love with:

- Let's go on a mad week or 2 week grind, all night every night, We grind when WE want, not when dailies say we can. Furbolgs! I need to kill 67000000. I will.

- Let's go dungeon for some nice drops. Adventurous dungeons, there might be spiders. I might travel through some mad doors, requiring keys I made in a zone where I avoided Dwarves. And then there is a bar, I need to keep my calm. But the whole complex is huge and has true architecture with bosses where you would not expect. I am trapped in there unless using HS. BLIZZARD DO YOU REMEMBER BLACK ROCK MOUNTAIN?? This is one of the most menacing/rewarding/soul-destroying/relentless zones in any game ever. You even had to quest around there for some rep for enchants.. and you look over to the mountain and wonder what you will drop in there this weekend. Same for the STV jungle and ZUL.. and other zones.

- An item upgrade is a new world. Wow is all about RNG. Diablo is blatantly that on a new level, it's a lottery and a prey on the lay. I loved the additional roll Blizz. No bad words other than, why block how many charms?

- Static World. No excuse Blizz, the game could have evolved in so many ways but most were not great lately. How about humble pie, how about rewind.

- talents: Let's have the old meandering ones back - the ones that start at the top, then scroll down from left to right..

- personal hate with the game now: I play AH. Any ticket has you saying 'can't help you, please click on player to report.'

SO let's get this right, due to imperfections in your game, you guys lazily make the whole botting scene only accountable by us saying to you that it exists? Not much of an insult.

Originally Posted by Xihuitl

I'm not so up myself I think they should do what I want, but the tone of their posts is shocking. They are so out of touch with the playerbase. Most of thier responses to criticism boiled down to:

Yeah we know players dont like it, but we want you to do it, so we are going ot force you to, and you will learn to like it....

um, no, I'll unsub.

Its the attitude not the actual decision that pissed me off.

I really enjoyed wow, but between a load of decisions I did not agree wiht and the attitude of Bliz, I decided to quit. Everyone makes their own choice. I did nnot leave MMOs, like a load of other people I know we moved on, currently enjoying GW2, and now getting into neverwinter.

The game genre is more pluralistic nowadays, the time of Bliz being the god of the MMO space and people worshipping at its alter is long gone. Either appreciate your players, or lose them, there are many options open for us now.

What player base? You do know that the people that post on forums and twitter are the vast, VAST minority of the player base, right?

Originally Posted by Granyala

Sad news indeed.


Constant DAILY rep grinds.
Frustrating drop rates from LFR.

Sorry but giving a casual player that, by definition doesn't play on a schedule, DAILIES is just retarded beyond belief.
I have a casual friend. He sometimes plays 8hrs on a Saturday and then he doesn't do a thing for 2 weeks. He'd like to make progress in MoP but all he sees are friggin dailies he can do ... once .. per Saturday. Back in the day he would have put on a tabard and grinded dungeons like madman when he had the time.
Now, it'll take him the better part of a year to get even ONE faction to exalted

He ran a few LFRs and was severely frustrated by the constant gold bag + the knowledge that his chances for loot didn't even improve for the next time around. He literally said to me: "LFR is boring as a healer and with that terrible drop rate it just feels like I'm wasting my game time."

So, witnessing the effect of MoP on him I'm not surprised in the very least that lots of casuals just surrendered to the daily brick wall.

pretty much this, also it took way too long to get to 90 in the first place, and imagine doing all what your friend despises on multiple characters