The expansion saw strong participation in value-added services.

[kamuimac]

Gotta milk those whales harder, I guess. And why not, since the whales in question are happy to be milked dry...

must suck to now have 100-200 euro a month to blow on stupid things without any regret

my advice ? people should focus more on work instead on playing wow then they wouldnt be so bitter that others can afford fun stuff

- - - Updated - - -

And Twisting Nether EU only has 5000 characters in there. http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=567
Realmpop has scanned 58k 120lvl armory profiles in Twisting Nether. https://realmpop.com/eu-twisting-nether.html

Oh wait it actually says there isn't enough data entries from a realm that is considered one of the big ones in EU. How accurate do you expect the data to be if even the biggest realms dont have enough people collecting data.

ill give you a good analogy one that you maybe understand .

compare wow to gym - have you ever seen all members being in gym at exackly the same hour of day ?

thats why you see so few online compared to so many active subs in this data

[Devilyaki]

Maybe a lot are doing the stuff but how many see them as choirs to get threw rather than fun things they like doing?

[Corroc]

ill give you a good analogy one that you maybe understand .

compare wow to gym - have you ever seen all members being in gym at exackly the same hour of day ?

thats why you see so few online compared to so many active subs in this data

Except when you look at the the highest populated realm that is Silvermoon which has 33k characters in warcraft realms and 70k in realmpop. The reality is that the warcraftrealms data just isn't reliable.

- - - Updated - - -

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/eu_rea...php?sort=Total
You can just look at the bigger picture here. Everything that is RED is bad. Says on the bottom of the page:

The ratios are color coded as follows. If the number you see is red, then there have been less than 50 data snapshots submitted for this server/faction in the last 30 days. This is BAD and we need more info on those realm/factions! If the number you see is in yellow, then there have been more than 50, but less than 100. This is better, but we really could use more data. If the number is green then there have been more than 100 snapshots submitted in the last 30 days. This is fairly acceptible to give reliable data!

The illiterate the problem there are over 502 factions that needs entries and only 27 of them are in green which is considered reliable.

[Sencha]

This is what the game is about now. Collection.

That's why I unsubbed.

[SirCowdog]

>implying 2 pets and a mount make someone a Whale.

That's like $50..

$50 is an entire AAA game, or 3.5 months of sub, which was instead paid to buy only 3 cosmetic items.

Yes, that's a whale in my book.

- - - Updated - - -

compare wow to gym - have you ever seen all members being in gym at exackly the same hour of day ?

New year's day. XD

[Azerate]

>implying 2 pets and a mount make someone a Whale.

That's like $50..

True, but then again, people will use whatever derogatory terms they know, even if they don't apply, to bring down someone whose opinion they don't like. I know people regularly spending 150-200$ monthly on some mobile games, if anyone should be called a whale, it's probably those guys.

I'm pretty poor IRL, but even so I decided to show some more support to Blizzard, because the anti-BFA propaganda is very strong on internet forums. If I really had too much dough to spend on wow I'd just buy tokens to get the AH mount, but that's like what I earn in half a year, so it's off the table for me.

$50 is an entire AAA game, or 3.5 months of sub, which was instead paid to buy only 3 cosmetic items.

Yes, that's a whale in my book.

An "entire AAA game"....most of them are done in 20 hours and forgotten. I'd rather have nice things in a game I play many hours a day every day. Definitely a better investment of my hard earned money.

[Deleted]

people will use whatever derogatory terms they know, even if they don't apply, to bring down someone whose opinion they don't like

Terms like “propaganda”?

[Mojo03]

True, but then again, people will use whatever derogatory terms they know, even if they don't apply, to bring down someone whose opinion they don't like. I know people regularly spending 150-200$ monthly on some mobile games, if anyone should be called a whale, it's probably those guys.

I'm pretty poor IRL, but even so I decided to show some more support to Blizzard, because the anti-BFA propaganda is very strong on internet forums. If I really had too much dough to spend on wow I'd just buy tokens to get the AH mount, but that's like what I earn in half a year, so it's off the table for me.



An "entire AAA game"....most of them are done in 20 hours and forgotten. I'd rather have nice things in a game I play many hours a day every day. Definitely a better investment of my hard earned money.

You can also re-sell the AAA after your done for at least 50% (often more) of what you paid for it.

Better than quasi-unique mounts and pets... Plus there are plenty of "nice things" that are better that can be acquired in game.

But that's my opinion.

[micwini]

Not overly surprising.

I've always been in the camp that the vocal & hardcore Blizzard fans have been heavily ignored in favor of a larger, quieter fanbase. Most people don't frequent forums. BFA is a very good expansion from a casual perspective, not so much from the hardcore, min/max mythic raid perspective. Same is true for a lot of their games.

I took that as "lots of people doing our new stuff, like warfronts/islands".

Then what exactly is a casual player? I don't minmax and I barely even raid, yet I don't really have any goals to set, because it just all seems for naught. There's nothing to work towards and the content is spread pretty thing.

[Azerate]

You can also re-sell the AAA after your done for at least 50% (often more) of what you paid for it.

Better than quasi-unique mounts and pets... Plus there are plenty of "nice things" that are better that can be acquired in game.

But that's my opinion.

Re-sell?

I've stopped buying physical copies of games somewhere around 2005, so that point kind of doesn't work for me. I understand that someone might like different things than me though, don't worry, I'm not in the "my opinion is the objective truth" camp

PS.

Plus there are plenty of "nice things" that are better that can be acquired in game.

Yeah, I fully agree. I still like an occassional store mount or pet to fuel my legion of followers :P

[Deleted]

I'm pretty poor IRL, but even so I decided to show some more support to Blizzard, because the anti-BFA propaganda is very strong on internet forums.

That's up there with the most stupid things I've read on this forum.

[Orby]

If you're going to have microtransactions idiots (whales) are gonna use it.

Of course this also means stuff like realm transfers, name changes, and stuff like this... The only huge gripe of a microtransaction is the WoW token and shop (not including the charity stuff)

[Sialina]

When “cosmetics” and other “value added services” are the main goal of all changes to the game mechanics which are heavily disliked by players - that is when you went wrong and are loosing people who had a hardon for your game before. You are replacing them, very actively, with whales who don’t care for fanboy stuff. It’s like with Diablo Immortal - people didn’t boo it, but the decision to NOT bring it to PC. Same with “value added services” - people don’t dislike them as long they are not the dominant common denominator for all changes to the game.

If you don’t see anything wrong there, I am sorry for your ethics and/or standards.

As for real mtx - read my sig - Activision is mtx based for years now, mostly thanks to King. No reason to not spread “best in group solutions” across all companies.

A couple of things to point out, why would whales not also be fanboys? And would you want your "fanboys" if they refuse to ever spend any money? Do you not think there might be a connection between someone that loves the game and would be willing to drop 10 dollars on a meaningless pet? Or do you think these mysterious whale people somehow just go around looking for games where they can spend money? How does this work in your head?

Would you also kindly point me to a game mechanic in wow that changed based on micro transactions?

Diablo Immortal got a bad reception for many reasons, changing platforms is a major one, another is the reputation mobile has for MTX.

I see nothing wrong with someone paying money for something they want when it's cosmetic, no. Nothing at all, in fact I think NOT having cosmetic options available for players to buy is a travesty. Look at wows character customization, it's lacking for a 2004 game even, let a lone a 2018 game. They could do with some resources to develop this further, and if I and a few others interested in new hairstyles could buy that for 2 dollars from the store, then yes please. Because as you can see these 14 years added just about nothing.

[Super Kami Dende]

$50 is an entire AAA game, or 3.5 months of sub, which was instead paid to buy only 3 cosmetic items.

Yes, that's a whale in my book.

Well your Book must be from the Fiction section of the library.

[kamuimac]

A couple of things to point out, why would whales not also be fanboys? And would you want your "fanboys" if they refuse to ever spend any money? Do you not think there might be a connection between someone that loves the game and would be willing to drop 10 dollars on a meaningless pet? Or do you think these mysterious whale people somehow just go around looking for games where they can spend money? How does this work in your head?

Would you also kindly point me to a game mechanic in wow that changed based on micro transactions?

Diablo Immortal got a bad reception for many reasons, changing platforms is a major one, another is the reputation mobile has for MTX.

I see nothing wrong with someone paying money for something they want when it's cosmetic, no. Nothing at all, in fact I think NOT having cosmetic options available for players to buy is a travesty. Look at wows character customization, it's lacking for a 2004 game even, let a lone a 2018 game. They could do with some resources to develop this further, and if I and a few others interested in new hairstyles could buy that for 2 dollars from the store, then yes please. Because as you can see these 14 years added just about nothing.

he means it in different way

those people are angry because some wow players at certain point in their life stopped caring so much about "progress" in game and started to care about "progress" IRL and now have a lot of money while they have nothing

they are simply bashing people with good jobs because they cant imagine that someone succesfull dont care about small amounts like 50-100 euro monthly and for them its a lot of money .

and i agree about wow lacking severly in this department - i wish they would ad a lot of shiny armours/weapons in shop . its such a shame that wow shop is so poor compared to other games on marker.

- - - Updated - - -

$50 is an entire AAA game, or 3.5 months of sub, which was instead paid to buy only 3 cosmetic items.

Yes, that's a whale in my book.

- - - Updated - - -



New year's day. XD

or 1 good dinner for 1 person out in the city in decent restaurant.

why do you care on what people spend their money on

[Lollis]

Oh wait it actually says there isn't enough data entries from a realm that is considered one of the big ones in EU. How accurate do you expect the data to be if even the biggest realms dont have enough people collecting data.

I've been playing on and off (mainly on) since Vanilla and I don't think I have used Census mod since tbc. Its like WoWhead, the vast, vast majority of people do not use any mods to gather and report data, and there are even fewer for the less prominent sites like warcraftrealms.

[shadycharacter1]

It's actually pretty sad to see blizzard reduce to paypig farming.

[Soon-TM]

must suck to now have 100-200 euro a month to blow on stupid things without any regret

my advice ? people should focus more on work instead on playing wow then they wouldnt be so bitter that others can afford fun stuff

Got to be some broke whales if they can get drained from WoW, ever played a game with real MTX? There are plenty of examples of players dropping a million dollars or more.

Maybe you are just very broke and you get jealous every time you see someone with an ingame store mount? I never get when people are sad about cosmetics being for sale in a game. They pay for themselves and then some.

Man, gotta love those ad hominems. That means you have no actual counter arguments, GG

[~Valen~]

It saw steady growth from launch - WotLK at which point it leveled out, saw a small growth for the launch of Cata and has decreased every expansion since then with small upticks at expansion launches before a ~50% drop in subs in WoD followed by them stopping reporting their numbers.

So sure, maybe people said it was dying, but there wasn't any actual proof of "death" until Cata in terms of sub numbers. Even today though, WoW isn't dying as in at risk of being shut down, but it definitely is "dying" as in it doesn't have near the player base it once had either.

It depends on your perspective - they had noted income from WoW was at an all time high a few earnings calls ago...

- - - Updated - - -

factually incorrect, wow had its peak subscribers in 2010

I was being ironic...

[Mad_Murdock]

Oh wait it actually says there isn't enough data entries from a realm that is considered one of the big ones in EU. How accurate do you expect the data to be if even the biggest realms dont have enough people collecting data.

It is obviously not 100% accurate. But I'd say it puts you in the ballpark. I run the census mod and during launch I was playing an average of 12 hours a day. On my server, I saw an average of 1400A and 1500 Ally\Horde on during peak time the first month. By the 2nd month, it was already down to 1100\1000 and now it is down to 900/800. Of course, that doesn't mean they all unsubbed, it just means they aren't playing. Our server in the past, pretty much always matched the sub announcements.

Unless you are on a super server, Like Illidan-US, the mod will normally give you pretty good idea how populated your server is. Again, doesn't tell you how many active subs, but a baseline none the less