World of Warcraft: A victim of circumstance

[Deleted]

I'd personally like a magic reset button. I'd hit it right now and put WoW back to BC systems. Back when you earned what you had, the game had immersion, and you had to socialize with the community. Screw everyone "seeing content". Back in the day......you earned that.

Call me old fashioned. However when you earn something....you tend to appreciate it much more.

Totally agree with this, rather than being fed the content through easy mechanics, vanilla and TBC actually had that something special that you actually had to earn content. Just like the old pvp honor grinding system that has vanished; in vanilla you had to grind honor to rank up and buy gear according to your rank, today ranks are basically meaningless and everyone is able to buy the same gear without the same (lack of) effort.

[Deleted]

Back in the day, companies existed to make money, How many customers do you want to drive away with your changes, thus taking money away from the company? That said, how much are YOU willing to dig out of your pocket to have the game exactly as you want it? 100$ month? 200$? 500$? Currently using 8.3M subs @ 15$ month thats >$124M a month, or $1.494B a year... if you drive another million away with your changes, who makes up the loss? You? I highly doubt you and the rest of you that want to revert the game to X timeframe (fill in the expansion of your choice) want to cover that kind of loss. Now do you?

Short version, as an investor, I dont want you and others like you fucking up my investment..

For an investor you don't know much about their income.

[RaoBurning]

Even back to pre-nerf ICC. take out dungeon finder and lfr and you're in business. Wrath wasn't a ton different from BC really. Main thing I can think of is that there was a 10 and 25 version of every raid. That imo is a good thing.

But I like LFG/LFR. I much prefer a bunch of strangers, often competent players, to the near lack of such on my realm alone.

[Deleted]

WoW is not a victim of time, as everyone wants to believe. Most people on here are so deep down into Blizzard's pockets they seem to think that Mists delivered 'good' content. Obviously it doesn't warrant the money from those people who left. And those former subscribers aren't exactly going to quit over graphics, are they? Maybe they're burned out because "SAME OLD SHIT. SAME OLD SHIT. SAME OLD SHIT.", like a wrestling fan hates John Cena, for being a non-moving blueprint. They don't innovate because they found a niche where they can produce the 'SAME OLD SHIT' to a dedicated, very broad audience that's been built up over time, and the only way that'll change is if Titan is someday seen as a transfer model, in order to refresh the main base.

Release Mists of Pandaria
Lose 1.7 million subscribers in 2 quarters
'WAHH IT'S PAST IT'S PEAK'

If you're saying WoW is past it's peak, you better go run and tell the Wildstar Devs that they're producing an old-timey game that won't sell. Obviously their marketing department has different ideas.

And no, Mists of Pandaria is 'new', in a chronological sense, but the content is 'OLD!' and thus 'SAME OLD SHIT'.

-Zol

[Axehandle]

WoW is not a victim of time, as everyone wants to believe. Most people on here are so deep down into Blizzard's pockets they seem to think that Mists delivered 'good' content. Obviously it doesn't warrant the money from those people who left. And those former subscribers aren't exactly going to quit over graphics, are they? Maybe they're burned out because "SAME OLD SHIT. SAME OLD SHIT. SAME OLD SHIT.", like a wrestling fan hates John Cena, for being a non-moving blueprint. They don't innovate because they found a niche where they can produce the 'SAME OLD SHIT' to a dedicated, very broad audience that's been built up over time, and the only way that'll change is if Titan is someday seen as a transfer model, in order to refresh the main base.

Release Mists of Pandaria
Lose 1.7 million subscribers in 2 quarters
'WAHH IT'S PAST IT'S PEAK'

If you're saying WoW is past it's peak, you better go run and tell the Wildstar Devs that they're producing an old-timey game that won't sell. Obviously their marketing department has different ideas.

And no, Mists of Pandaria is 'new', in a chronological sense, but the content is 'OLD!' and thus 'SAME OLD SHIT'.

-Zol

Don't you dare bring John Cena into this....

It's still real to me dammit!

[Mirishka]

Ya don't worry. We'll be losing more subscriptions. That's what happens, when you make a pay to play game, and then only listen to the lazy gamers.

I'd personally like a magic reset button. I'd hit it right now and put WoW back to BC systems. Back when you earned what you had, the game had immersion, and you had to socialize with the community. Screw everyone "seeing content". Back in the day......you earned that.

Call me old fashioned. However when you earn something....you tend to appreciate it much more.

You do realize this is a video game right? Not a promotion, or a bonus for a job well done. Its a game. Take your idiotic, elitist attitude and apply it to something that actually matters in life.

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 06:17 PM ----------

WoW is not a victim of time, as everyone wants to believe. Most people on here are so deep down into Blizzard's pockets they seem to think that Mists delivered 'good' content.

Or maybe, just maybe, we're people with valid opinions who enjoy the expansion. Your opinion isn't everyone's, whether you realize that or not.

But hey, enjoy sitting at your PC believing that you have some amazing insight that others lack. Because - Spoiler alert - you don't.

[Axehandle]

You do realize this is a video game right? Not a promotion, or a bonus for a job well done. Its a game. Take your idiotic, elitist attitude and apply it to something that actually matters in life.

In his defense he did mention 2 critical things wow has lost because of impatient, fussy gamers and that's immersion and the social aspect. I agree wow is not a job and should never be approached as one except by those earning money from playing it.

Return to the immersion (probably not possible) and make it a social experience again (much more possible) and this game will resemble what it once was when sub losses were but a thought and not a harsh reality since mid way through wrath.

[Seranthor]

For an investor you don't know much about their income.

I know that driving away customers in droves usually is a bad thing... doesn't take a genius to figure that out... you've figure that out, haven't you?

[Deleted]

Have you even played MoP? This has expansion has been some of their best work ever.

They simply messed up with the Valor Point gear, having dailies linked to the rep which is in turn required to use Valor. The dailies are fine. Forcing them on people to buy Valor gear isn't. This burnt out a lot of people and made the expansion very alt unfriendly.

Asia sub losses (over half of the 1.3m) come from the massively growing F2P market over there. They even said that in the conference.

The best part about the post sub loss threads is that you get to keep reading people citing that their personal opinion is why Blizzard is a failure instead of looking at the actual reasons why. Subscription losses don't always correlate to game quality.

Calling mop their best work ever after losing 1.3 million subs between 5.2 and 5.3 is... well... it's a free world you can say what you want I guess.
If for you an unfamiliar lighthearted setting with pet battles, farming and wise patronising pandas is "their best work" ever, happy days. Maybe that 10+% player base that left in the last 3 months were all Chinese hackers...

[Deleted]

I know that driving away customers in droves usually is a bad thing... doesn't take a genius to figure that out... you've figure that out, haven't you?

Its the "Currently using 8.3M subs @ 15$ month" bit that lets you down. You've figured that out, haven't you?

[Polarthief]

I hope we lose another few million subs. Would make Blizz churn out even better quality content.

It's not just content, though that's a big part.

- ToT is a great raid
- Everything else outside of raiding is pretty boring (with the exception of solo scenarios)
- LFR is not "raiding" in the sense of fun raiding. It's an over-glorified dungeon with 5x the players

They need to make non-raiding content that isn't dailies/reputation grinds.


TBH I'd love more solo scenarios. Anyone who hasn't gotten to experience the Thunder King's Loot Scenario or the Warlock Green Fire Questline REALLY needs to do so. They're probably the most fun I've had in WoW since Vanilla-WotLK.

[Monteverdi]

The sky isn't falling. There is no magical cause to WoW's drop in numbers, and there is no magical cure. People are over-analyzing this way too much.

WoW is 10 years old, and it faces more competition today than it ever has. As popular as the game is, new players aren't quickly gonna be signing up for an MMORPG that is 10 years old - MMOs, more than any other type of game out there, are so difficult to catch up on because of the constant addition of content, which new players can have difficult traversing. On top of that, players who've been with the game for years and years are going to be moving on at some point - many of WoW's playerbase from launch now have careers and families that take up much of their time.

Does the mean the death of WoW? Of course not. It's just aging. Subscribers numbers will continue to dwindle (though the game will continue to experience the ebb and flow in subscribers whenever new content/expansions are released) for many years, and Blizzard will eventually begin to pull people off of WoW and onto other projects (something that is already happening in small amounts), but that won't mean the game is dead by any stretch. WoW is still a massive, massive game. Any other MMO would be considered hugely successful if it had just 1 million subscribers, let alone 8.

There is no 'fix' for this - and in fact, if Blizzard tries to overanalyze it instead of rolling with it, they risk making drastic miscalculations that can hurt the game's longevity. WoW is dying, in the sense that every one of us is dying as we slowly age. But WoW's 'death' is not around the corner, and not an immediate concern.

So what do we do as players? We stop overreacting and enjoy the game. And when the game gets old and we stop enjoying it, as is bound to happen with most of us - move on. Don't freak out, don't yell at Blizzard, just move on. You'll be happier for it, and those of us who remain will be as well.

[Deleted]

Its the "Currently using 8.3M subs @ 15$ month" bit that lets you down. You've figured that out, haven't you?

Oh god i hope you aren't managing anyone's finances...

[Deleted]

Oh god i hope you aren't managing anyone's finances...

Oh and whys that?

[Deleted]

Oh and whys that?

Cause if you have 10 millions and in 3 months you drop it down to 8 millions and you still go around saying "hey I still have 8 millions so everything is juuuust fine", you'd be ruining the poor guy's savings.

[Deleted]

Cause if you have 10 millions and in 3 months you drop it down to 8 millions and you still go around saying "hey I still have 8 millions so everything is juuuust fine", you'd be ruining the poor guy's savings.

Well perhaps if I actually said anything to that effect you'd have a point, but as I didn't, you don't.

[Malcor]

I'll keep posting this until people get the fucking point

Israel
8,012,400
March 31, 2013

WoW
8,300,000
May 8th, 2013

So, WoW has more players subscribed than the entire country of Isreals population, After 8 years. What now?

You all fail to underestimate the POWER of 8.3 Million people still paying 15$ a month. not to mention character transfers,name changes,race changes,faction changes.

[Deleted]

Well perhaps if I actually said anything to that effect you'd have a point, but as I didn't, you don't.

Oh I might have misunderstood the tone of one of your posts then. If that is the case, I apologise.

[Zenko]

The reason why WoW is losing subs is because of the people, not the game. Make all the excuses you want, you only have yourselves to blame for whatever you choose to 'not enjoy' or when you choose to 'miss the old times'. You should all quit while you're ahead!

Let the game grow, or die with it.

[Deleted]

I'll keep posting this until people get the fucking point

Israel
8,012,400
March 31, 2013

WoW
8,300,000
May 8th, 2013

So, WoW has more players subscribed than the entire country of Isreals population, After 8 years. What now?

You all fail to underestimate the POWER of 8.3 Million people still paying 15$ a month. not to mention character transfers,name changes,race changes,faction changes.

What does that, like, even mean?