Why WoW is not dying...

[Deleted]

What you have to remember, OP, is that there are many people who stopped playing the game feel personally slighted by it in some way and are rooting for it to fail, hence the whole "dying" thing.

I'm not sure where it's started, but it's not just with WoW. Modern gamers and internet culture has this insidious fetish about seeing things fail. No, nowadays you don't just dislike something and move on with your life and spend your leisure time on things you LIKE - absolutely not - you spend all your free time talking about the things you HATE instead.

People get genuinely hyped about X or Y game doing badly, as far as I'm concerned they're all really sick, not cos I really care more about the livelihood of those devs or whatever, but because it seems hatred has become something to be proud of, to get giddy about. Sheesh.

[Tic Tacs]

Doesn’t tell me anything other than people are getting what they asked for. They originally said no but the community made it obvious it’s something they really want so blizzard delivered and assumed it’ll be worthwhile for them.

You have absolutely no basis for first statement. People being grown up has nothing to do with this, plenty of people who’ve played WoW since 04 are around. Games that reward instant gratification are definitely popular, more so than the MMORPG genre. However WoW is still doing very well considering legion sold the most amount of copies compared to any other expac, blizzard has openly stated they’re pumping more money into the game than ever before, etc.

How can you say the game isn’t doing well when blizzard states they’re pumping more money into it now than they ever have? Why would a company do that if it wasn’t worth it? They’re a company, they want to make money, if providing more funds for a game that already has a ton of funding is worthwhile to them, that should tell you it’s doing well. If it were the opposite and they reduced funding then yeah I’d say it’s not doing great but that’s not what’s happening.

I remember people talking about Blizzard vanilla servers back in 2010, why now? Are you going to say because they were listening to the community for 7 years to make a decision?

Yes, some people who played in early days of the game are around. I would argue that most of the people who played during vanilla days don't play the game any longer or at least not on the same level as they used to because they are adults now with a job, family and real life issues in general, remember we are talking about people who are 13 years older now.

Yes, Legion and Wrath sold about 3.3 million copies each in the first 24 hours. Do you know that Warlords which is considered to be one of the worse expansions sold about 3.3 million copies too, right? Remember, during Wrath we had close to 11 million subs at some point in time. I highly doubt we have anywhere near this amount of subs right now.

Where did you find information that "they’re pumping more money into the game than ever before"? Please link the source if possible.

[Taeldorian]

I remember people talking about Blizzard vanilla servers back in 2010, why now? Are you going to say because they were listening to the community for 7 years to make a decision?

Yes, some people who played in early days of the game are around. I would argue that most of the people who played during vanilla days don't play the game any longer or at least not on the same level as they used to because they are adults now with a job, family and real life issues in general, remember we are talking about people who are 13 years older now.

Yes, Legion and Wrath sold about 3.3 million copies each in the first 24 hours. However, during Wrath we had at some point in time close to 11 million subs. I highly doubt we have anywhere near this amount of subs right now.

Where did you find information that "they’re pumping more money into the game than ever before"? Please link the source if possible.

The only thing you’re doing to counter my point of the games current success is making guesses. You “guess” that many from vanilla aren’t around, you “guess” that legion doesn’t have as many subs as wrath.

I don’t think legion has as many subs as wrath and I never compared it to wrath, however the fact legion sold just as many copies as the most popular expansion should show you that it’s still very successful. Throughout the expac blizzard has stated that legion is doing better than WoD at retaining players (so in Q3 when WoD had 5.4 million legion had more) which is a positive. They also stated legion is doing very well in general at retaining players (not compared to anything just a general statement).

None of that information is a guess like the points you’ve made which were all guesswork. Now on top of that, mike morhaime just stated that they are pumping more money into the game than ever before. (Source: http://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog...017-transcript). You seriously think they would be doing that if the game was dying? Blizzard is a company and a company would not be giving an already heavily funded game even more funds if it wasn’t worth it.

As for vanilla, they decided it was worth it. That’s why they did it. The amount of players that played on nost, the amount of hype the classic server will generate+the amount of streamers that don’t even play WoW hyping it up will lead to a massive influx of players and subs. They could easily reach over 12 million subs with BfA and the classic server. Some of the most famous streamers are hyping it, some very old wow content creators are hyping it, etc. It’s going to generate massive amounts of money. This will only push the game forward. There were many ways for blizzard to see that this was worth it for them and they went to those outlets (private servers, content creators, hype delivery, etc) and decided to give it a shot.

TLDR: There’s nothing showing WoW is dying aside from you “guessing” a lot of things. However there’s a ton of statements and investments that show WoW is still extremely worthwhile to blizzard. Worthwhile enough to increase funding even though it’s already very heavily funded (source for that above). That should tell you how the game is doing. Not only that but the classic server will bring people to retail WoW as well, people will try classic and then try the main game and like it so they stay subbed to play both. The future is looking very good.

[lllBlackSunlll]

While I do not particularly want to say that this is bullshit... it could be your experience. I was very active on fora back then wow related. Never have I see anything about mounts being too fast and that it would break anything. If anything you only had complaints about inbalance of classes and that for example paladins were shit and needed a strike ability and a "finisher". Besides that lag was an issue. You pretty much had no complaints... no really.


PvP was only the best gear to gear up around tier 4 mate. After you cleared tier 4, you were free to gear up via raids basically. And honestly... You did not require PvP gear at all... only if you seem to be missing a few pieces from raids... (for example... I missed a one hander, so I went pvp to get it)
TBC wasn't about PvP gear being better. That was Vanilla.... And it was not really a complaint either. Just weird.
Flying was never a complaint. It was found awesome by everyone. After WOTLK (after...) it became a complaint about loss of immersion. Why this late? No idea... myself included... did not realize it was bad for the game until then either. Pretty much the only complaint was "easy access to wellfare epics" "nerfing the dungeons to lootfests" "attunements"
It is true that the first "wow is dying" popped up. It became world of casual fest.. who knew that it would become worse and worse...

Actually Ret paladins started to shine here. Ret pallies were awesome in WOTLK. It was also "the paladin expansion". TBC is where Ret paladins were shunned... they were pointless to bring.
That raids became more accessible was not a problem. That dungeons were even easier then the nerfed versions of heroic TBC dungeons... that was bad. Complaints about mandatory dailies (Sons of Hodir) became more rampant... but that was not really the biggest complaint... Again epic loot was abundand. Everyone had it... People complained about noobs getting in dungeons with green gear... while having epic (not suited for their class) gear in their bags... I do recall that people found it again... too much for the casuals...


Dude this last section is just... seriously... your conclusions are so bad. The nay sayers... they found it the end of WOW because they felt less and less at home. The nay sayers QUIT. I mean if you find a game not enjoyable at all and WoW died... you quit. Yeah I know some of those still lurk in this forum. WoW had dramatically changed from something that "purists" of the genre (yeah I know... bad call to name them purists... but you get me) liked and loved... Then as the game changed... other types of players came in. The game survived in name only.....

That is not to say that since I became a filthy casual, I enjoy the game a lot more then if I would have been a hardcore player that I was from a 8 years ago. If you would put that "me" from 8 years ago into Legion.... I would probably ragequit.

Criticizing point by point things you don't believe people complained about is missing the point. There were criticisms, a lot I did not mention. If you don't remember them being concern at the time, that doesn't matter. The point is there were a lot of concerns then and there are concerns now. Heck, there have been private servers since the release of BC and people calling for legacy servers since then. We look at our memories as if they were something better than the now. Maybe they were good, but it disregards now good the current state of the game is now.

People have always been saying past experiences were better and the current iteration is the death of WoW. Then the next expansion happens and people keep saying the same thing. For that reason alone I know WoW is not dying. People are just wrong. And to anyone else, I like Classic servers.

[Vorkreist]

The game is not really improving, the retail playerbase is dwindling. The post cata design direction is finally showing its full engame.
Retail is so fucking dead and hopeless they have to throw classic in your face before showcasing the most bland and boring expansion concept in wow to date.
The only bad part is their switch to not disclose specific sub details anymore.
Taking in consideration the vast crowd of legacy players and the tens of millions of players that played the old wow at some point and are itching to try it again.
I'd bet in over a year after release. Classic will have more active players than the exp.

[Tic Tacs]

Here what you said:

Blizzard has openly stated they’re pumping more money into the game than ever before, etc.

Here is transcript from your link:

Question: Can you discuss in a little more detail recent performance, and trends you are seeing across World of Warcraft and Hearthstone; and how you are thinking about the pace of investments for these franchises going forward?

Morhaime: So we continue to be very happy with both of those. With the strength of both of those franchises; and I would tell you on the World of Warcraft side, we are investing more than ever. The team has been hard at work delivering on our commitment to the community to deliver more content...

I don't think they are talking about "pumping more money" here. Also, remember this is a quarterly report, they have to make everything look good so exaggerating something is nothing new. Fact is they didn't report sub numbers since WoD, now why wouldn't they?

[Taeldorian]

Here what you said:



Here is transcript from your link:



I don't think they are talking about "pumping more money" here. Also, remember this is a quarterly report, they have to make everything look good so exaggerating something is nothing new. Fact is they didn't report sub numbers since WoD, now why wouldn't they?

It’s simple. They’re investing more into WoW. Why would they ever do that if it wasn’t worth it? They’re a company, they wouldn’t be doing that if it wasn’t worth it. Nothing else to say.

[Tic Tacs]

It’s simple. They’re investing more into WoW. Why would they ever do that if it wasn’t worth it? They’re a company, they wouldn’t be doing that if it wasn’t worth it. Nothing else to say.

Yes, Activision Blizzard is a company and you did answer your own question, dead cat bounce or in this case vanilla servers.

[Taeldorian]

Yes, Activision Blizzard is a company and you did answer your own question, dead cat bounce or in this case vanilla servers.

There’s nothing showing that’s the case. There’s statements showing the exact opposite though.

[Omega10]

I've also been playing since 2005 and I can't remeber a a time when some people didn't whine.
It use to bother me but after a few years I've come to accept that these people will always exist, so I just ignore them.
12 years in the game and I still enjoy it and I'm excited for BfA!

I agree one hundred percent with this. WOW, and Blizzard in general, will be a part of American culture for years to come. And as older players leave and move, new players will join the ranks to replace them. Sometimes more will leave then will join, other times more will join. This is just the ebb and the flow of how these things work.

[Vaelorian]

Criticizing point by point things you don't believe people complained about is missing the point. There were criticisms, a lot I did not mention. If you don't remember them being concern at the time, that doesn't matter. The point is there were a lot of concerns then and there are concerns now. Heck, there have been private servers since the release of BC and people calling for legacy servers since then. We look at our memories as if they were something better than the now. Maybe they were good, but it disregards now good the current state of the game is now.

People have always been saying past experiences were better and the current iteration is the death of WoW. Then the next expansion happens and people keep saying the same thing. For that reason alone I know WoW is not dying. People are just wrong. And to anyone else, I like Classic servers.

You now twist it into something else. I like classic servers too. Heck I will join the moment they are launched. But your memory isn't serving you well. So your reasoning as to why WoW "was dying" back then, aren't the reasons why people thought WoW was dying at all. So you give us false information to make the point that every WoW expansion, people said WoW was dying.

[Volitar]

I mean it is dying. Doesn't have to stop you from enjoying the game.