Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[OmegaManHester]

Subs have got to be way down, so many long time raiding guilds on my server no longer raid, also a lot of the trade chat Pug spam has diminished

Even the new ToT daily hub has far less people, I'm on a full pop server and a month ago the daily Hub was packed

The current state of PVP has had a major negative effect on the ToTal package of wow

[ro9ue]

You're talking to a Wow fanboy. Game design and player happiness are completely dead last in their method of arguing. He'll scream "9 million" until his mouth foams and his eyes bulge.

WoW fans tend to defend Blizzard from the perspective of an investor rather than a consumer.

I like what you said, so I shall quote it.

Sticking to the topic: Raids used to consist of a small percentage of more invested raiders and the remaining ones that were somewhat carried were the casuals. Now those casual guys get to do all the raids through LFR and they are content with that. Quite honestly, so am I. No reason to invest so much time into the game. The whole driving factor for me from release on was seeing all that exclusive content. For a lot of people who didn't even get to see Naxx 40 and Sunwell, it was their driving factor too, even if they never reached the summit.

Now no matter how badass the new boss is, you can kill it in a single 1hr session with no real investment for mats and insane gear or learning previous fights.

[Deleted]

Leveling took forever, it's too slow and boring. Then when you're 90, at last, you have to grind those fucking dailies to get some stupid coins. Farm heroics and LFR to gear up. The one raid i did with guild was boring and i have been offline pretty much since.
I leveled 6 alts in cata, doing same in panda would probably end in suicide. So no fun in there and without alts, playing AH is pointless. Flipping item is not my thing.

I log in and after a bit chatting i afk away. Maybe next xpack is better. IMO this has been the worst of all time for me.

[rhorle]

Well if Durumu's maze is nothing but a void zone to you then I guess you can say anything that does damage to a player is just a void zone so it's all exactly like Vanilla.

It is the reverse of a void zone. Instead of not standing in the "void zone" you have to stand in it to not take damage because the rest of the room is the danger spot. The Maze isn't that complicated and you can even survive for a little bit in the eye sores before you will die. (Its a good time for personal and raid cool downs). All of the mechanics in MoP are simple things that have been seen before in one form or another.

Almost every mechanic introduced into WoW has show up in a similar form in the past or is just a modification to previous ways the mechanic worked. Eye sores and Disintegration beam are two incredible simple mechanics but for one reason or another are giving huge problems for people. Blizzard has even made it easier but half the raid in LFR still manages to die from it.

[Deleted]

.Almost every mechanic introduced into WoW has show up in a similar form in the past or is just a modification to previous ways the mechanic worked. Eye sores and Disintegration beam are two incredible simple mechanics but for one reason or another are giving huge problems for people. Blizzard has even made it easier but half the raid in LFR still manages to die from it.

People die because that's a mechanic you can't ignore like most of mechanics in LFR. Same as beams. You need to run around the room to expose adds. For a person who just likes to stand and dps boss it's a big problem.

[Conscious]

Because Blizzard's a better business than Trion.

I don't know if you've realized that they're slipping in that department something hard, post wrath.

[Osmeric]

I don't know if you've realized that they're slipping in that department something hard, post wrath.

Still, Rift's activity numbers on xfire.com are less than 2% of WoW's, and big names have been jumping ship from Trion.

[Conscious]

Still, Rift's activity numbers on xfire.com are less than 2% of WoW's, and big names have been jumping ship from Trion.

I don't doubt it, my point is that Blizzard hasn't been doing so well lately either.

It's been almost two expansions, and they can't seem to plug this subscriber leak of theirs, no matter what they do.

[namelessone]

I don't doubt it, my point is that Blizzard hasn't been doing so well lately either.

It's been almost two expansions, and they can't seem to plug this subscriber leak of theirs, no matter what they do.

I suspect it's because the main source of leak is dead servers - something they are vehemently unwilling to address.

[Seefer]

Because you stick to a philosophy if you want it. You don't give people a taste of the golden apple then take it away. Players dealt with "You're casual, you see things 6 months after everyone else finishes" from launch to TBC. WotLK did away with that, weakened tier for justice, puggable normals, ect.

If that never happened, maybe things would be less of an issue, but you gave the majority of WoW's players a taste of that then took it away, they aren't going to look at themselves and say "Oh, silly me, well that was fun while it lasted I better go do my dailies" They're just going to quit, since that ended, over 3 million have quit, surely not all of those are because of the changes, but some have.

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 09:12 PM ----------



If that was the case, raid participation and clearing percentage per capita wouldn't have been higher during WotLK with easier normals.

Erm.............you do know a huge chunk of people never downed Lich King til Crapaclysm right?

[Conscious]

I suspect it's because the main source of leak is dead servers - something they are vehemently unwilling to address.

Either which way we paint it, their business model isn't innocent when it comes to how they're faring at the moment.

[namelessone]

Either which way we paint it, their business model isn't innocent when it comes to how they're faring at the moment.

This, again, might have less to do with business model and more with tech limitations. New games have the luxury of building on new infrastructure right away or utilize new technology right away. Blizzard has to go through hoops to seamlessly update 8 year old tech without breaking anything. Server tech is one major area WoW is starting to fall behind on, I'm pretty sure they aren't keeping it because they love how it works.

[Ragedaug]

Sounds like its time for you to make a decision then.

Recruit more players and gear up with current LFR to make Tier 14 more manageable, join a new guild and make friends, or quit the game.

First world problems.

I've already made the decision, "Mr. Helpful"

I'm done raiding. I thought that was obvious in my previous posts? I'm not seeking or asking for your help. The OP asked "where have all the raiders gone". I have done the best I can to explain where I and the other 9 people who have raided with me (who no longer raid) have gone.

There's nothing you can tell me that I don't already know from the past 8 years of playing wow (seven of those raiding). As the current format is, I'm done. I have absolutely no interest in finding a group of strangers that will help me kill pixels. The fun for me comes from playing with friends. Blizzard has made it quite clear that my friends aren't good enough for progression raiding, so we haven't progressed, then several of my friends got disinterested in the game, then they quit. If the bosses in LFR had half the health they do it would be bearable, but 15 minutes of spamming my single target rotation followed by 15 minutes of spamming my AoE rotation...rinse and repeat for entirely too long makes me want to gouge my eyes out at the thought of trying to "gear up" through LFR.

So I mostly PVP and work on achievements now a days. I have several friends left that still play. You would say that "sucking" is too good of a word for them. They are level 90, but most don't know what they are doing. They don't try to raid, they just go around in groups doing odd things here and there. I mostly chat with them or help them if they need some backup.

But anyway, yeah, I really am not looking for your help on how to start raiding again in today's WoW. It's all yours buddy.

[Rajadog20]

Huge subscription difference says otherwise.

---------- Post added 2013-04-11 at 02:23 AM ----------


Nah, I just understand that businesses are there to make monstrike a balance between making the chappyandmaximisiyism.

Charging for server transfers would only decrease subs ....

Rift doesn't have less subs because Trion doesn't know business, but rather due to the oversatuation of the market at the time o Rifts release compared to WoWs .

[rhorle]

I don't doubt it, my point is that Blizzard hasn't been doing so well lately either. It's been almost two expansions, and they can't seem to plug this subscriber leak of theirs, no matter what they do.

That fascination with subscriber numbers is a bit silly. Just because they have last a fraction of their total numbers doesn't mean Blizzard is a bad business or that they are slipping. You need something concrete beyond the standard "Subscribers are down wow and/or Blizzard is dying" type of logic.

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 11:25 PM ----------

I suspect it's because the main source of leak is dead servers - something they are vehemently unwilling to address.

You mean like CRZ? Something a vocal part of the community hates yet is blizzard attempting to address the problem.

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 11:26 PM ----------

Either which way we paint it, their business model isn't innocent when it comes to how they're faring at the moment.

Pay to play has always worked for Blizzard and WoW. It is still working and a pay to win model likely wouldn't help them at all.

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 11:30 PM ----------

This, again, might have less to do with business model and more with tech limitations. New games have the luxury of building on new infrastructure right away or utilize new technology right away. Blizzard has to go through hoops to seamlessly update 8 year old tech without breaking anything. Server tech is one major area WoW is starting to fall behind on, I'm pretty sure they aren't keeping it because they love how it works.

The WoW servers and the technology are not 8 years old. Remember Blizzard auctioned off original server hardware in 2011. They constantly are updating the technology of their servers and the underlying database code. WoW is not an 8 year old game. While somethings require more work then others to update there is nothing about the servers holding the game back.

[klaps_05]

raiders going down, pvp not very popular, yet subs are still at ¬10m. gotta wonder how many people pay their accounts without playing.

[rhorle]

If the bosses in LFR had half the health they do it would be bearable, but 15 minutes of spamming my single target rotation followed by 15 minutes of spamming my AoE rotation...rinse and repeat for entirely too long makes me want to gouge my eyes out at the thought of trying to "gear up" through LFR.

Good news! No fight in LFR has a boss with 15 minutes worth of DPS health. Lets not make excuses, you just don't find enjoyment in playing the game anymore. There is literally no reason why playing the game in a raid scenario would make you want to stop playing if your goal is to play the same way in a organized group. Either way you are going to have to spam your single target rotation and your aoe rotation at some point.

[endersblade]

Every time I see this thread pop up on the feed, THIS SONG GETS STUCK IN MY HEAD FOR HOURS

[Eisenstein]

Every time I see this thread pop up on the feed, THIS SONG GETS STUCK IN MY HEAD FOR HOURS

AHHH ear poison! Really though it tells you that it's something that is on the players of wow's mind. It's just like the person who says they no longer care about their favorite sports team and take the time to get all worked up on how bad they are. The real deal is there is still a love for the game and a certain drive to experience the content but there are some things that really need to be worked on to make it a fully enjoyable game again. On top of all that it's pretty genius that Bliz has kept this many people involved and entertained for as long as they have. Even the best TV shows usually have the 7 year itch. Is this WoW's?

[namelessone]

You mean like CRZ? Something a vocal part of the community hates yet is blizzard attempting to address the problem.[COLOR="red"]

CRZ is a symptom, not a cure. CRZ solves nothing, just emphasizes the problem. It gives you all the drawbacks of heavy server without any of the advantages. And when I talk about server tech, I don't mean hardware. I'm sure their hardware is top of the line, but their code just doesn't support flexible server system. Ancient server system is exactly why they still can't figure out how to make "account-bound" heirlooms ACTUALLY account-bound.