"Players rarely argue for less convenience." - Ghostcrawler

[brunnor]

Quick question: what if your goal is to just relax and have fun, without necessarily striving towards improvement? What if you just like seeing mobs and bosses dying and don't particularly care about applications, simulations or theorycrafting?

As I said, you can't have everything you want as the game can't accommodate to every single person. But I personally have never ran a sim of my char or done any theorycrafting in years and I'm 13/13H. You can find a nice relaxing guild and have fun that probably doesn't overly care too much about progression. Those are casual raiding or pug guilds. There used to be tons of those before Cata.

If you are naturally skilled enough to clear content, then you are more than welcome to do so. If the bosses are beyond your skill/gear and you don't want to get better, then you have two choices, get more gear or wait for nerfs. That's the issue, everyone wants content right this second, there is no waiting, no working, no gearing. They want it now and only now, any other time is unacceptable to them.

[nekobaka]

Quick question: what if your goal is to just relax and have fun, without necessarily striving towards improvement? What if you just like seeing mobs and bosses dying and don't particularly care about applications, simulations or theorycrafting?

Dungeons. For the later PuGs. Simulations and having to sit there and theorycraft wasnt even that large of an importance in Cata normal modes besides getting the basic priority and rotation down which the game tells you now, the rest comes from playing the game and gaining experience. This is an RPG so some thinking about use of abilities comes with the territory. There has long been non-challenging content out there for those who dont like challenges, the majority just tend to move past it and into the more engaging parts of the game.

If you want to do things that dont burden others or have other burden you then stick to the single player aspect of the game or find a game that does single player better than WoW which is a lot of games. WoWs MMO design inherently kills single player immersion and Cata showed how it just doesnt work in an MMO like this.

That's the issue, everyone wants content right this second, there is no waiting, no working, no gearing. They want it now and only now, any other time is unacceptable to them.

And will gladly toss it aside for something new. Long term sustainability of such behavior is just not viable in a world where development takes increasingly longer time.

[Deleted]

Yeeeah... no.

Do you want to know why the subscriptions are dwindling?

1- World of Warcraft is 9 years old. People playing any game for a long time end up getting tired of it.

2- A lot of those 12 million players back in BC and Wrath have either gotten tired of the game, or decided to take up other hobbies and obligations as they became older. Someone who was 16 when Wrath of the Lich King was released is now 21 and probably either dealing with college and/or work.

3- The pool of players who would like to play World of Warcraft is very small, compared to the ever-growing pool of people who have played the game and stopped. Far more people have stopped playing than play right now. It was true in Wrath, and it's even more true now.

4- World of Warcraft has a lot more real competition now than they had back in the day. There's a limited pool of MMO players and only so much time they can dedicate to games, meaning most only play one or two at a time. And with a lot of free-to-play MMOs out there (not just conventional MMORPGs), there's only so many people WoW can attract and keep.

And those are just a handful of many out-of-game factors out there. If you think the drop in subscriptions was solely, or even majorly caused by design decisions, you're sorely mistaken. I only wish Blizzard revealed the statistics on what people answer when they cancel their subscriptions. I'd be willing to be good, hard cash that the two top reasons would be "lack of money" and "lack of time", with a comfortable lead over the other options.

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Quick question: what if your goal is to just relax and have fun, without necessarily striving towards improvement? What if you just like seeing mobs and bosses dying and don't particularly care about applications, simulations or theorycrafting?

Right... Because what you said is true and what I said is wrong...

The only thing we know for sure is the subs are dropping, and the game has changed majorly. You are free to draw your asumptions I will make mine.

[Osmeric]

I dunno, what did they have to do in Vanilla, BC, WOTLK before LFR when they WEREN'T bleeding subs?

But they WERE bleeding subs then. It's just the influx made up for it. What happened in Cataclysm is the NET change in active accounts went negative.

I know lots of people who dropped the game in BC, Wrath, or even Vanilla. There are a lot of ex-players out there.

[Holtzmann]

Lame excuse, there are older games out there still selling millions of copies

... please, enligthen me: what other MMOs from 2004 still have millions of people playing them?

Possible but still I don't believe in coincidence when the game is bleeding subs since Cata

It was not a coincidence that hardcore Vanilla and BC players were getting older by the time Wrath ended. It was also not a coincidence that a lot of players that started in early Wrath (which sold like hot cakes when it was released) got burnt out when Icecrown Citadel lasted just so long, and then got hit again when they reached Cataclysm's "inconvenient" heroic dungeons.

Wrath had the most subs ever

And that's relevant to the argument how? Back in Wrath there had been more former subscribers than current subscribers. There's only a limited amount of people who are ever going to give World of Warcraft a chance, and by now most of them are either playing or have moved on from the game for an incredibly diverse set of reasons. There has always been player churn. Hell, even back in Vanilla and BC you had lots of people swearing they'd never touch WoW with a 10-foot pole ever again. The difference is that now there isn't a steady flow of new players to mask that churn.

Do you know what would have happened if World of Warcraft had been released in 2004 with the same features it has today? Two things. One, it would be derided as the most casual MMORPG ever. Two, it would have been even more ridiculously successful. 20 million peak subscribers, easily.

Yep and most of their competition sucks.

Nice piece of opinion you got there, buddy. But every competing game, regardless of how good you think it is, draws from the same pool of players as World of Warcraft. Now riddle me this: what happens when competing games have on average 250,000 active players, and there are dozens of them, all trying to get potential WoW players?

Remember that WoW is disproportionally losing more subs in Asia than in the other regions, and guess what's getting really popular out there nowadays? Yep, F2P MMOs.

I'd be willing to bet it's game design.

Good. Let's hope they release those statistics one day. I'll accept a Pandaren Monk from the Pet Store once I win the bet. :P

Then play a console that doesn't have other people relying on you.

My, my... "get off mah lawn"? Really? :P

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Dungeons. For the later PuGs. Simulations and having to sit there and theorycraft wasnt even that large of an importance in Cata normal modes besides getting the basic priority and rotation down which the game tells you now, the rest comes from playing the game and gaining experience. This is an RPG so some thinking about use of abilities comes with the territory. There has long been non-challenging content out there for those who dont like challenges, the majority just tend to move past it and into the more engaging parts of the game.

Believe me, I'd love to have new dungeons in Mists, like there were in Wrath and specially Cata (although the Troll heroics suuuucked). Seriously, I can't stand raids. They're incredibly boring. Dungeons FTW, even stuff like Halls of Reflection back in ICC before people outgeared it to hell and back. Scenarios are fun, but sadly not quite the same thing.

[Deleted]

I only wish Blizzard revealed the statistics on what people answer when they cancel their subscriptions. I'd be willing to be good, hard cash that the two top reasons would be "lack of money" and "lack of time", with a comfortable lead over the other options.

Have you actually seen options on unsubscribe page? Most options are similar to "game is too difficult" and few options like "lack of time". That's it. So the only real options are ether something is too difficult or RL stuff. There is an option similar to "I don't like direction where game is heading", but no option to specify what exactly player doesn't like. (at least it was like that last time I used that form. Now I use only game cards that don't subscribe me, so there is no option to unsubscribe) Results of such poll are useless.

So no, Blizzard don't know why people quit because people in charge of collecting data are incompetent.

[Deleted]

There is an option similar to "I don't like direction where game is heading", but no option to specify what exactly player doesn't like. (at least it was like that last time I used that form.

Just FYI, there is an "Other" option that brings up a box to fill in with your own reason.

[Ronduwil]

These things you dismiss used to keep players busy due to them being designed to be slower to consume compared to now.

I dismiss them precisely for that reason. The ratio of heroic dungeons/raid bosses used to also be much more balanced than it is now. LFR is the only reason they're able to (sort of) get away with that right now

Blizzards solution of trying to shove everyone into raids isnt working out so well so far particularly when they are not meant to be engaging.

I'm in total agreement with you there. What blows my mind is all these supposed raiders who want to have their cake and eat it too. You can have 16 new raid bosses every three months, but you have to share them with everyone. Or you can have 16 new raid bosses per year and have them all to yourself. You can't have it both ways.

I dunno, what did they have to do in Vanilla, BC, WOTLK before LFR when they WEREN'T bleeding subs?

The non-raid content to raid content ratio was far more balanced in those releases than it is now.

WoW's logical step has turned in to crying about how hard it is to run a marathon and demanding that you be given something just like a marathon but requiring little to no effort to complete but still getting a similar medal to those who run the normal marathon.

It's more like they blew the budget creating a track for the marathon runners's benefit so they allow the general public to use it for jogging in order to justify blowing the general publics' funds on this niche group of runners. You're the runner who's miffed at having to share "your" track with the everyday folks who funded it for you.

People's goal seems to be easiest epics possible and that is just a crappy game model to base a game around.

You're confusing, "Give me somewhere to go next," with, "Make everything easy for me." It's not about the epics. It's about being able to accomplish something within reasonable time constraints. In early Cataclysm you could either grind heroic dungeons a couple of hours a day for months for a set of 346 gear or you could raid a couple of hours a week for a few weeks for a set of 359 gear. That wasn't quite fair. No one wants easy epics, but they do want some form of progression.

There has long been non-challenging content out there for those who dont like challenges, the majority just tend to move past it and into the more engaging parts of the game.

And the only semi-compelling form of that content right now is LFR. If you take LFR away those people have nothing to do. I decided I was tired of raiding, and that included LFR so I unsubscribed. I'm sure I'm not alone. Personally that's fine for me because I've been playing SWTOR and having fun doing that. That's not so great for Blizzard because one of my accounts has been inactive since February and the other has been inactive since April. That's $120 worth of revenue that they've lost out on.

[Seefer]

The non-raid content to raid content ratio was far more balanced in those releases than it is now.

Yep but guess what? BECAUSE they have to have all these different raid difficulties BECAUSE people who didn't raid complained about it they can't put out more non-raid content as easily, it isn't us raiders who want their cake and eat it too, it's casuals...........they want to raid but they don't want it difficult or to have to schedule time, so they got LFR, but they also want more 5 mans and non-raid content.

It seems to me casuals and bad players (different people) are hypocritical, they sit there and stereotype us as the ones doing all the bitching but it's them, they sit there and say we call them names but it's THEM who calls us all the names (Special snowflakes, no lifers, unemployed basement dwellers etc).

You're confusing, "Give me somewhere to go next," with, "Make everything easy for me." It's not about the epics.

That's a lie, so many complain when they just get gold from LFR, they like to make it seem it isn't about epics but I GUARANTEE YOU if they dropped blues the casuals would complain and stop doing LFR.......look at scenarios.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

People rarely argue solely for less convenience. They argue for a return of World and Community at the expense of convenience.

[Omega10]

"Well, here you go, 3 years later, this is the game THE COMMUNITY has asked for."

I agree with this. The game that Blizzard has made, which reasonably closely models what the community has asked for, is pretty much everything I would want it to be. I am mostly happy with the direction Blizzard has taken WOW in, I am content with the game, and I hope that Blizzard continues to build on what they have created. The WOW killers all died. Only Blizzard has navigated the difficulties of keeping an MMO alive during these tough economic times.

Bravo Blizzard!

[Endus]

That's a lie, so many complain when they just get gold from LFR, they like to make it seem it isn't about epics but I GUARANTEE YOU if they dropped blues the casuals would complain and stop doing LFR.......look at scenarios.

You need to consider the alternative, too. Plenty of people here have been arguing that Blizzard's focus on "casuals" has led to a several-million-subscriber loss. As you just pointed out, though, if they had made the changes those several-million would have wanted to justify sticking around, they quite possibly would have lost even more, as casuals fled the game. That's what happened at the start of Cataclysm, with the harder 5-man dungeons kicking people in the teeth, for instance.

The reality is, the hardcore crowd is in the minority. It's the smart business decision to appeal to the bulk of your subscriber base. Nor does that make WoW a "worse game". It might not be what you want, but that just means you're no longer the target market they're aiming for. I don't like the Call of Duty or sports-game franchises. That doesn't make them "bad"; I'm just not their target market.

If they had removed/heavily limited flying mounts, removed LFR/LFD, re-instituted long attunements, kept leveling as long and grind-y as in Vanilla, and made raiding/dungeons less forgiving, I can pretty confidently state that the sub losses would have been at least twice what they have been, if not more. They might have retained a lot of those who've left, but they would have alienated far more in the process.

[Jessicka]

The very fact LFR is still in game and Blizzard is continuing to add to it is proof positive that it is a minority of players that want it gone. Blizzard doesn't make a profit from pissing off the majority of their customers so no, they aren't going to mindlessly do things that alienate their paying customers. LFR is here to stay and you people need to stop being so god damn butthurt over what others are doing.

It may exist because it is at present filling the role 5 man heroics used to fill for 'catch up' content. Given no new 5 mans, it'd be insane to pull it as we'd be left with no form of instanced catch up content, which would be insane. It's also given people a lot of people a form of content they enjoy; if they pull it, they risk losing those people altogether. Pulling a form of content is a huge gamble once it's in the game, as I'll get on to later.

If people don't want to be good at something why do it? I never suddenly got a hair up my ass to go try and play football because I had no desire to be good at it! If people want to raid they should be a good player! If they don't want to be good at it do other things!

Who says they have to raid to play WoW? There's load of other content outside of raiding. A lot of that doesn't require any form or manner of being 'good at the game'. Even so, a bunch of my collegues play football at lunchtime, content that they'll never play in the Premiere League - but then nor will players in the Championship or League 1. Hell, most of those in the Premiere League wont even get to play for their country - It's just something they do for fun, to keep in some form of shape and for its own entertainment value.

Just let me get this straight: does that mean that you truly, genuinely believe that Blizzard actually think they "screwed up" with LFR and would rather remove it, if they could and had the balls to admit a mistake?

I think the only mistakes they're truly accepting now are something like: Removing ICC10N level of difficulty; not implementing new 5 man dungeons; Removing Skirmish Arenas; removing the normal level of difficulty for 5 mans. See the theme here? Removing content is the mistake they've been making, and it's pretty obvious why. By removing content, you remove that focus for those certain types of player, in effect removing their content, the things they enjoy. It's a gamble as to whether they'll find a new focus, or quit. Too many have clearly been quitting.

[brunnor]

But they WERE bleeding subs then. It's just the influx made up for it. What happened in Cataclysm is the NET change in active accounts went negative.

I know lots of people who dropped the game in BC, Wrath, or even Vanilla. There are a lot of ex-players out there.

Bleeding subs means sub numbers go down. While there is sub turnover always, bleeding means the out going is larger than the in coming. That means more people are saying "this game sucks, peace" than are saying "man, i like this game and want to play it more". That is a problem.

More people were excited to come to WoW during Vanilla > Wrath than Cata and MoP. While you can say that it is all "age based" that is not at all the case. The games popularity carried it a long way and that is where the "it's new" thing came in and it's popularity is low as hell right now when talking to players I know. My player group is obviously on the hardcore end for the most part but have a lot of old raider friends and such who all dislike the game overall right now.

[Mormolyce]

WoW only started losing players faster than it was gaining them when Cata hit. That didn't even happen during the year long time we were stuck doing ICC runs. It was very clear Cata was full of garbage people did not want.

Stop talking garbage:



WoW stopped growing in 2009, ie Wrath launch. Has spikes when a new expansion is announced or launched.

It's all irrelevant in any case, WoW is 8 years old. That dominates over any other factor. The only surprising thing is how long it has lasted already.

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That means more people are saying "this game sucks, peace" than are saying "man, i like this game and want to play it more". That is a problem.

Or they're just sick of it because they've been playing it for 8 years. Most games don't last a fraction of that time.

[jakeic]

It's more like they blew the budget creating a track for the marathon runners's benefit so they allow the general public to use it for jogging in order to justify blowing the general publics' funds on this niche group of runners. You're the runner who's miffed at having to share "your" track with the everyday folks who funded it for you.

this is wrong.

it is more akin to them building a sports complex, and then the people who want to walk around the track demand to walk on the baseball diamond, the football field, and the tennis courts because they payed for it. then once they're allowed to walk on those parts of the complex whenever they like they demand that the walls be removed, the goal posts taken down, and the nets removed because they hinder their ability to walk where they want. once the complex has been torn down into a field where anyone can walk as they please they tell the people who want to play baseball, football, and tennis that there is endless areas to play those sports now and they don't see why it is a problem that they had it all removed.

[Normie]

this is wrong.

it is more akin to them building a sports complex, and then the people who want to walk around the track demand to walk on the baseball diamond, the football field, and the tennis courts because they payed for it. then once they're allowed to walk on those parts of the complex whenever they like they demand that the walls be removed, the goal posts taken down, and the nets removed because they hinder their ability to walk where they want. once the complex has been torn down into a field where anyone can walk as they please they tell the people who want to play baseball, football, and tennis that there is endless areas to play those sports now and they don't see why it is a problem that they had it all removed.

In what way is it "akin" to this bizarre dream of yours?

[Deficineiron]

Yes, and no. The main bulk of the subscribers are very fickle and without commitment. The game could be better than ever and with your mass of subscribers being "mainstream" casuals your subscriber numbers might still go down, or up, or down, etc. It makes your subscriber base very unstable and unreliable, and most of the time the mainstream casual doesn't bother playing a game longer than 3-6 months before they're forever done with it. So a constant decline is to be expected when you focus on the mainstream game consumers nowadays. The whole market is centered around fast consumption and fast profits nowadays, which for an MMO might not be that great of a business model. Overall I'd say WoW is doing pretty well still though with it's ~4m subscribers in the west, but I'm quite sure that it's longevity is mostly dependant on the "first generation gamer hardcore nerds" that wanted to immerse themselves into a second online life (who would choose immersion over convenience most of the time (unless they get really bored)).

If WoW had released in the shape and form it is in today, back in 2004, then it would've suffered the same fate as all other "seemingly promising" MMOs that get released today, and would've fallen into obscurity. WoW is mostly surfing on the back still of those "first generation hardcore fantasy gamers" that found suitable immersion and fun in the game and have evolved along with it.

this is a really great post.

only would add 1) the 4m (is it less than 4now?) western subs is only possible just due to the huge inertia of wow being THE mmo new players try - how many vanilla/bc players are left? 50%?

2) wow would have gotten some high sub interest early on classic if today's game went out then just due to war3's success and the storyline, but yeah, the game would have bombed.

3) i often say that while Kotick is death for a complex mmo game, he is a great businessman. I just don't think McMMO is necessarily the only viable model that they could have taken with wow after the merger.

[Flaks]

Yes, and no. The main bulk of the subscribers are very fickle and without commitment. The game could be better than ever and with your mass of subscribers being "mainstream" casuals your subscriber numbers might still go down, or up, or down, etc. It makes your subscriber base very unstable and unreliable, and most of the time the mainstream casual doesn't bother playing a game longer than 3-6 months before they're forever done with it. So a constant decline is to be expected when you focus on the mainstream game consumers nowadays. The whole market is centered around fast consumption and fast profits nowadays, which for an MMO might not be that great of a business model. Overall I'd say WoW is doing pretty well still though with it's ~4m subscribers in the west, but I'm quite sure that it's longevity is mostly dependant on the "first generation gamer hardcore nerds" that wanted to immerse themselves into a second online life (who would choose immersion over convenience most of the time (unless they get really bored)).

If WoW had released in the shape and form it is in today, back in 2004, then it would've suffered the same fate as all other "seemingly promising" MMOs that get released today, and would've fallen into obscurity. WoW is mostly surfing on the back still of those "first generation hardcore fantasy gamers" that found suitable immersion and fun in the game and have evolved along with it.

Right on on everything. Blizzard's shifted it's business model to providing for a new playerbase, one that's not likely to stick around.

I'll add that going back to the older playstyle of truly investing yourself VERY long term in the game will hurt it more than help it now as the vast majority of the playerbase has either evolved or been replaced with players enjoying the conveniences and jumping in and out of the game.

While the quoted post wasn't really biased or opinionated at all, I'll inject some of my own in saying that Blizzard has really gotten to shooting itself in the foot by ensuring maximum short term profits very much at the expense of long term profits/loyalty. I'm more than willing to wait another 4-6 years to see what they have wrought.

[Deficineiron]

I dunno, what did they have to do in Vanilla, BC, WOTLK before LFR when they WEREN'T bleeding subs?

vanilla and bc had content that remained challenging for 5-mans at max level throughout the expansion. bc heroics in particular would wipe t4/5 groups that screwed up. a few of them were just notoriously hard. once you are spending easily over a hour to clear a dungeon, you find your in-game time quickly taken up, especially if you are putting together a group partially or all pug.

wotlk of course, slowly bled western subs after the spike into q1 2009 (vivendi ceo comments, 12m worldwide), because while china/netease hit new highs and kept growing after q3 2009, the worldwide sub number remained static.