WoW Down to 8.3 Million Subscribers

Originally Posted by Spinachsandwich

It's funny to see people in here argue that they need to bring back BC when BC is exactly what they've been trying to bring back for 2 failed expansions.

Cata heroics were tuned beyond BC. Other than the increased difficulty, nothing from BC design style was noticeable in Cataclysm.

MoP has almost no similarity to BC.

Ooooohhhhhh new unannounced MMO?? Is that a confirmation we're seeing it at Blizzcon

Originally Posted by Shrouded

Again, most MMO-champion posters ignore the trend in favor of the "but 8.3 million is still good!" argument. Yes, 8.3 million is good. It's great, even! Few other games can boast such high numbers, especially after WoW has been out for this long. But come on, even the most devoted WoW player needs to realize facts - a subscription loss of 1.3 million in a single quarter is srs business. Imagine if that subscription loss continued for a year - that'd be 5.2 million subs lost. In a year!

It's naive to think that this won't affect your WoW experience. As WoW's subscription base declines, so will the resources available for Blizzard to maintain the game. The quality and quantity of content will be affected. WoW will no doubt live on for many years to come, but it's very obvious the game is on the decline.

Absolutely true. It is easier for people to head in the sand it though.

Will they finally fix the little things that helped toward the fun? :/ Low level pvp is unbalanced as can be right now.

The way it should be seen is that, less people means the possibility for a better community..
right..?
hoping to much maybe, but anyway people probably quit from broken PVP, and thinking if they dont do dailys they cant do things at all, and then the east is just, the east as its always been with subs

WOW had at least 20 Years left. So calm down your gleefull Hate.

Originally Posted by kukui

Play WildStar. They have most of the original WoW Dev team working for them. They are bringing back 40man raids and such. They even stated that most MMO's cater 99% of the player base, the casuals. However they want to cater to the 1%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeUbXJZPkd0 (Interview and gameplay of the game from last month)

I enjoy it when people who I fundamentally disagree with stick to their guns like that. I will be very happy if they become a disastrous confirmation that they were wrong.

Yeah I'm done with wow once MOP ends, or earlier if I lose my raid spot for some reason. Why?

1. Cross Realm Zones - they add people to kill you, but not people that can join your guild or contribute to your AH, server economy, etc. Everybody kills you or takes the mining node you found or is a bot taking the mining node you found. Yip-frigging-ee.
2. Rep-gated VP gear - makes sense (if you're Blizzard) to drag things out and make them take longer, but tedium <> fun.
3. Scenarios over 5 mans - I wrote a huge post on what they could be doing with scenarios, but they're not. Scenarios aren't fun. MOP 5 mans aren't really fun either, actually.

I fear for the next expansion _and_ Titan because I don't think Blizzard thinks any of the above are bad. They like all those things. Well, I don't. Given how things are going, Titan will be a console based + smart phone appified + real money AH/microtransaction + cross realm + tons of catering to people who enjoy making your life hell. (aka 13 year olds, or people with the maturity of a 13 year old. _I_ was just like that at 13.) Every aspect of it will be designed to be dragged out and take forever, because if Blizzard is anything, what they aren't is stupid. They're smart, super-smart. Just not necessarily benevolent. No business is, really. Not all the time.

Please note: I'd love to be wrong about all this. I don't write any of the above smugly, but rather sadly. I enjoy wow and have for nearly a decade now. I don't want to play another game. But I don't truly want to play wow anymore, either because of what it has become.

Originally Posted by kukui

Play WildStar. They have most of the original WoW Dev team working for them. They are bringing back 40man raids and such. They even stated that most MMO's cater 99% of the player base, the casuals. However they want to cater to the 1%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeUbXJZPkd0 (Interview and gameplay of the game from last month)

Except that it's not a fantasy MMO.

Originally Posted by IIamaKing

Absolutely true. It is easier for people to head in the sand it though.

Still a staunch supporter that WoW would actually be healthier with another 2-3 million fewer subs myself, barring any Activision freak out.

The last few months have proven what BLizzard has done wrong with MOP. They have totally ignored the core of the game that is holy trinity content to the core 5 man dungeons. Instead they created gameplay worth very little... and at the same time pushed tanks and healers away cause the entire game has been made not only most efficient for DPS specs... but even ONLY playable for that spec like with Brawler's guild. Thats unforgivable and is pushing the game into more and more unbalance and worse state for those that just want to play and enjoy good co-op trinity content.

I left MOP as a player that have been playing all specs - tanking, healing and dps and thought I did my part to balance the game and allowed other players to take part in the game by playing multispec as tank and healer on the only class that can do that. The reward for me in MOP..... Im forced to play DPS.... and even UNABLE to play my prefered and NEEDED specs in LFR cause of horrendously bad LOOT rules that were added in MOP. And I pointed this out 8 months ago in multiple topics... and was ignored. Only now... in 5.3 are they changing some of this... but still ignoring other things... and stuck with a game that is now SOOO badly balanced in terms of core roles that ppl are waiting hours in Qs... And those specs needed are not being rewarded for helping out in those Qs..... but are instead sent to do ENDLESS lines of daily quests that were NEVER created for their role.

The devs have failed the ENIRE holy trinity crowd with MOP. And they should be taking FULL responsibility for whats going on in the game at this stage.

And what does 5.3 bring ... ??? Back to item upgrade system that PUNISHES players that decide to still play multispec.... again going back to forcing player that only get 1000 valor per week to either upgrade for just one role... or suffer forever with less item levels and worse performance than others that stick to one role.

Disgrace. Total and utter disgrace. And these devs need to be called out in this.

Originally Posted by kukui

Play WildStar. They have most of the original WoW Dev team working for them. They are bringing back 40man raids and such. They even stated that most MMO's cater 99% of the player base, the casuals. However they want to cater to the 1%.

(Interview and gameplay of the game from last month)

I am following Wildstar as well. 40 man raiding scares me. The logistics of running a 40 man guild is insane. It is hard enough to find 25-28 decent players. For a 40 man grp, you will need a raiding roster of around 55 people. Good luck with recruitment.

WoW has around 2000, 25 man raid team left in the west. (1981 Jinrokh normal kills in ToT 25 in the west) This is out of a player base of around 5 mil in the west.

Now imagine what it would take to maintain a 40 man roster.

8.3 million is still probably about 7 million more than the next most popular MMO. 1.3 million drop is not very significant when you still have 8.3 million to count on.

Let's see, 8.3 million times $15 is $124,500,000. That's just for one month. Not including Blizzard Store purchases, character transfers, name changes, race changes, etc. And yes, it absolutely is as simple as that.

Originally Posted by Freese

How has this caused a rift? People would unsub and have unsubbed in the past when they felt like the raid content was too difficult. True, people are still unsubbing now, but could that perhaps be due in part to people becoming tired of the raiding model in general?

If you want to see a war all you have to do is talk about the raid sizes and their difficulty. The raid community is split and both sides hate each other. Also, the push for 10-man raiding forced massive homogenization into the classes and made those of us who actually enjoyed having to work with raid compositions disgruntled. Older players have been abandoning the game since the end of Wrath and it's only going to get worse.

Originally Posted by Tomana

Not a chance, Titan is already planned as casual from the start on. The time of vanilla-like stuff is dead and buried.

Classic WoW was designed to be casual from the get go compared to the rest of the competing market. Those who played WoW in Classic was the casuals of the time.

Originally Posted by Duster505

The last few months have proven what BLizzard has done wrong with MOP. They have totally ignored the core of the game that is holy trinity content to the core 5 man dungeons. Instead they created gameplay worth very little... and at the same time pushed tanks and healers away cause the entire game has been made not only most efficient for DPS specs... but even ONLY playable for that spec like with Brawler's guild. Thats unforgivable and is pushing the game into more and more unbalance and worse state for those that just want to play and enjoy good co-op trinity content.

Well GC did recently say that they wise they made more five man content. Given that Blizzard gets all the feedback before we do then this might of been why he seems to have effectively regretted not making more five man content.

Personally I really enjoy the holy trinity system as both a healer and a DPS. Having to go to DPS on my healer for 99% of the game is not fun. It was group based holy trinity content that kept me playing late BC and into WotLK and Cata. Now the shift towards this solo mined gameplay has killed the engagement for me as a casual and not being able to sit down on a schedule with a guild or play during prime time with the few remaining PuGs.

Originally Posted by kukui

Play WildStar. They have most of the original WoW Dev team working for them. They are bringing back 40man raids and such. They even stated that most MMO's cater 99% of the player base, the casuals. However they want to cater to the 1%.

I won't bet a cent on the long-term survival of such a game, alas.

I suddenly no longer like to do a dungeon, because 1+ million people stopped playing. I miss them. I mourn them. I can't go on. I quit.

Originally Posted by kukui

Play WildStar. They have most of the original WoW Dev team working for them. They are bringing back 40man raids and such. They even stated that most MMO's cater 99% of the player base, the casuals. However they want to cater to the 1%.

That's not entirely accurate. They said that they WOULD cater content to the 1% -- multiple different types of 1% .... And that overall, they want to make sure there is content for all kinds of people.

IE: In-depth crafting system, "homesteading" options of maintaining your own houses, furnishing them, hanging out etc; raids of various sizes, meaningful world pvp/guild wars, etc.

Just keep in mind that they can say all the want -- until we actually have an Open beta/Release for Wildstar, we can't know for sure that all of these things will actually make it into the final product. Promising the World to consumers has been the marketing tactic for every MMO ever...

Originally Posted by Faroth

Still a staunch supporter that WoW would actually be healthier with another 2-3 million fewer subs myself, barring any Activision freak out.

It would actually be a Vivendi freak out, since Vivendi (through the board) shields Blizzard from Kotick.

Originally Posted by nekobaka

Classic WoW was designed to be casual from the get go compared to the rest of the competing market. Those who played WoW in Classic was the casuals of the time.

Good point. Let me rephrase that: Titan is already planned as more casual compared to most MMOs from the start on.
This was always Blizzard's business model.