How will 8.3 keep casuals occupied for 9+ months?

[Alvito]

It is great for raiders. You come once per week for reclear, transmog and chance for mounts, then you can have time off to recharge your batteries until next progression push. There's nothing worse than being in a "CE" guild that gets CE after last wave of nerfs so you never have any period of farm / relax and jump from progress to progress, I've seen so many guilds burnt out and lose players because they never had this period of downtime. That's also the reason why crucible was ignored by majority of playerbase, no one wanted grueling 2 months wipefest to get mythic Uunat only to insta jump into EP wipe fest a week or so later.

Btw if you raidlog you still pay your sub so Blizzard shouldn't really lose any revenue.

Also last patch is a good time to catch up on alts, achievements, collections (mounts, transmogs, etc.), allied races and w/e else raiders didn't have time to grind while they were busy raiding full time.

I never saw a CE guild "shut down" and unsub until next xpac, not even during the true "content droughts" of ICC, DS, SOO or HFC, unless the guild was already on the way towards disbanding and the content drought just sped it up (same would happen either way, if they got stuck on last boss for months, they'd disband too if everyone was already tired). Yeah I know there was no "CE" until MOP but whatever was the hardmode to raid before.

2 guilds in my servers top 20 are still raiding. Sure a few still have people doing things, but for the most part right now it is a ghost town waiting for January. To be fair about half of those disbanded their raids all together, the others being on breaks from scheduled raiding.

[Marrilaife]

2 guilds in my servers top 20 are still raiding. Sure a few still have people doing things, but for the most part right now it is a ghost town waiting for January. To be fair about half of those disbanded their raids all together, the others being on breaks from scheduled raiding.

What level of raiding are we talking about, because literally every friend of mine that is raiding mythic is either still progressing or reclearing. My old guild disbanded at Azshara (after 7/8m) and basically half the people found new guilds and are raiding, rest quit / went to Classic because they were burnt out anyway. Haven't seen a guild that cleared the raid, hasn't disbanded and isn't spending at least 1 raid a week on reclear.

Now if we're talking about heroic raiding, I don't know.

Guilds that disband are another story, usually they do so when they arrive at the last boss or other hard wall boss, or just after killing it. Usually what kills them is roster issues or internal tensions, or general burn out. Not "running out of content". Finishing the raid or not being able to finish just catalyzes the process.

Also could be a region / culture thing?

I'm from EU, raided regularly from ICC until now with 1 break between TOT in MOP and Highmaul in WOD. Guilds ALWAYS raided on farm, and if a guild didn't, it was a clear sign abandon ship because it's sinking. Without a fail, that was the case. I raided all the long months of ICC, DS and HFC, unfortunately missed SOO. Farm was usually fun as well, we'd do achievements, farm mounts, bring alts to heroic / mythic after it became nerfed / easy to clear, and generally everyone was more relaxed. Yes, you'd have some pricks that didn't wanna raid once they got their mount / BIS loot, but bad apples always happen, most people stuck around and helped.

[ImpalerEU]

Why even play the game at all then? What use does it have raiding with friends and having a good time when the gear from the raid is going ot be obsolete a year from now anyways? And what is the point of farming mounts and feeling a sense of achievement from that? It is just numbers on the screen, hardly a point ot anything in this video game when you could be spending all day farming the food you need to survive, or hunting a deer to feed you and keep you warm in winter with its fur.

His post was referred to the things to do now, and my response was in that regard.

[Muajin76]

Casually doing Mythic+ dungeons
Heritage armor/lvling alts
Lfr
Transmog
Mechagon meta achievement
Argus eye farm
Pet battle dungeons
Battlegrounds
Lvl Vulpera !
Class Halls (really want those DKs pets)
Legion Emissaries for pet/mounts
Island expedition to get dubloons for loot crates xd


And thats a lot od things for a casual playing less than 1h during a week and couple on saturday. I wont finish even half of it probably.

But “Hey!” there is no content in WoW

find a gf/bf. spend more time with the gf/bf/hubby/wifey you do have. have a social life?:P

[Vutar]

No I do. You're suggesting that next expansion will be shit anyways. Which I completely disagree. Every single expansion we played was a blast "at the start of it at least" exploring new content is always fun. Which is why I say to people here not whine with content drought.

and who the fuck needs a new class. we have tons of classes without identity as already is.

I don't agree with your idea that every single expansion was a blast to play. However, lets say that you are correct for arguments sake. You are then claiming, that since every other xpac was great, the next one has to be great too. That is a logical fallacy. It is known as appeal to tradition.

Appeal to Tradition (Argumentum Ad Traditionem; aka Argumentum Ad Antiquitatem): This line of thought asserts that a premise must be true because people have always believed it or done it. For example, "We know the earth is flat because generations have thought that for centuries!" Alternatively, the appeal to tradition might conclude that the premise has always worked in the past and will thus always work in the future: “Jefferson City has kept its urban growth boundary at six miles for the past thirty years. That has been good enough for thirty years, so why should we change it now? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Such an argument is appealing in that it seems to be common sense, but it ignores important questions. Might an alternative policy work even better than the old one? Are there drawbacks to that long-standing policy? Are circumstances changing from the way they were thirty years ago? Has new evidence emerged that might throw that long-standing policy into doubt?

[Alvito]

What level of raiding are we talking about, because literally every friend of mine that is raiding mythic is either still progressing or reclearing. My old guild disbanded at Azshara (after 7/8m) and basically half the people found new guilds and are raiding, rest quit / went to Classic because they were burnt out anyway. Haven't seen a guild that cleared the raid, hasn't disbanded and isn't spending at least 1 raid a week on reclear.

Now if we're talking about heroic raiding, I don't know.

Guilds that disband are another story, usually they do so when they arrive at the last boss or other hard wall boss, or just after killing it. Usually what kills them is roster issues or internal tensions, or general burn out. Not "running out of content". Finishing the raid or not being able to finish just catalyzes the process.

Also could be a region / culture thing?

I'm from EU, raided regularly from ICC until now with 1 break between TOT in MOP and Highmaul in WOD. Guilds ALWAYS raided on farm, and if a guild didn't, it was a clear sign abandon ship because it's sinking. Without a fail, that was the case. I raided all the long months of ICC, DS and HFC, unfortunately missed SOO. Farm was usually fun as well, we'd do achievements, farm mounts, bring alts to heroic / mythic after it became nerfed / easy to clear, and generally everyone was more relaxed. Yes, you'd have some pricks that didn't wanna raid once they got their mount / BIS loot, but bad apples always happen, most people stuck around and helped.

A few CE, several that are normally CE and do to various reasons quit. Of course the outlier is what for a few years was the best and first to CE each patch quiting after they killed Ashvane during the first month of the raid. One thing you did mention is some of it for a few groups, the never ending progression. Just barely getting or constantly falling short of CE. There are dozens of reasons why people quit though. My guild for example happily did Chosen weekly for a year, same with Guldan kills, you couldn't have paid people to do ToS again. Rewards mixed with the annoying nature of fights being a big factor.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

It doesn't have to.
If people don't enjoy the game they can take a break.
But with a game this big, there is ALWAYS something to do.

If they don't want to do new things, then that's on them.

[sam86]

Entitlement alert. You can simply unsubscribe until expansion release.

do u even know what i was talking about -.- ?

It did. And in the very first years, they left even before finishing leveling.

but the majority did NOT leave, for 6 years the sub number was increasing in exponential lvl, heck u can't even notice the (was it 4 or 6 million? can't remember, let's assume low case of 4) total drop of 4 million chineese player in TBC when wrath was out, in case u didn't know wrath was banned from china, and blizz had to change almost everything in it, u can even check right now DK is called 'unhappy knight' in china, or how Bonestorm boss looks totally different there
So no, while that did happen, that wasn't the general case, same as for today, i bet there are ppl who never unsubbed in their entire life, that doesn't change the fact that retail wow sub number is a joke in compare to even vanilla days, the last official released sub number way back in WoD was lower than vanilla numbers, heck the disaster leak earlier this year show that wow is at most 2 million, and ppl fought if leak was true or not and ignored the fact they should check their credit cards because there was a security hole in blizz accounts (and i'm really pissed how blizz got away with it, the community just fought if sub # is true or not, while no one talked about the security problem)

[GreenJesus]

You completely twisted my words. I said expansions are always fun at the start of the expansion at least. it's always fun for everyone.

I didnt find beginning of BFA fun at all. I just wished legion lasted longer for mage tower and artifacts stuff and undercity/teldrassil still existed. Honestly. I wish argus was a full expansion except we kept everything from legion.

[Relapses]

I didnt find beginning of BFA fun at all. I just wished legion lasted longer for mage tower and artifacts stuff and undercity/teldrassil still existed. Honestly. I wish argus was a full expansion except we kept everything from legion.

I get it. You're GreenJesus and all...but I'm sorry, that's too much fucking green.

[GreenJesus]

I get it. You're GreenJesus and all...but I'm sorry, that's too much fucking green.

It wouldn't have been too green if blizzard was as creative with Argus as they are with shadowlands.

[Relapses]

It wouldn't have been too green if blizzard was as creative with Argus as they are with shadowlands.

I guess? But an Argus expansion (Legion) after Legion (Legion) and WoD (Legion) just seems... lame. I'm not defending their decision with BfA but at some point an idea just gets played out.

[A Chozo]

but the majority did NOT leave

They did. There was also a way greater amount of new players trying WoW.

Nowadays, almost anyone that could've played WoW already did so the numbers won't rise that much. But majority of players leaving? Yeah it happened. If it didn't, those sub numbers you quoted would've been way greater for those mighty earlier years.

[Marrilaife]

A few CE, several that are normally CE and do to various reasons quit. Of course the outlier is what for a few years was the best and first to CE each patch quiting after they killed Ashvane during the first month of the raid. One thing you did mention is some of it for a few groups, the never ending progression. Just barely getting or constantly falling short of CE. There are dozens of reasons why people quit though. My guild for example happily did Chosen weekly for a year, same with Guldan kills, you couldn't have paid people to do ToS again. Rewards mixed with the annoying nature of fights being a big factor.

Yes, Tomb, Uldir and EP don't really encourage re-clears as there isn't a mount or unique transmog like Chosen awarded. Also yes, Tomb was a guild-breaker in Legion, because so many guilds got stuck on Mistress, then Maiden, then Avatar, then KJ if they even made to him. That should teach Blizzard to stop putting so many wall bosses in the same raid, or nerf them asap after top 100-200 dealt with them. Weaker guilds will not bang their head against the wall for multiple 100-300 wipe bosses.

Imo, EP wasn't nerfed enough, Ashvane was nerfed sufficiently by now that average guilds can pass it, but we're a month, two tops away from the new raid and many guilds are still stuck on Zaqul or Azshara, and not being able to kill them will be the prime reason for frustration, quitting, and guilds disbanding from either losing people due to fatigue, or due to blame game that sometimes starts when a guild is unable to pass a boss and people start looking "whose fault it is".

By now everyone has max gear, max neck, farmed all essences, residuum, benthic, there's no more help for #1000 guild except Blizzard stepping in and nerfing the bosses. I really don't believe it takes away from anyone's accomplishment, it's been 5 months and all the highly skilled and disciplined guilds either finished, or are close to.

Judging from what wipes people I'd lower the hp of delirium add, lower the damage people take in delirium, add maybe extra second delay between spawn animation of tentacles and actual hit, something along these lines. Yes I know for everyone who's past this boss these mechanics are "easy" but the nerfs should be aimed at guilds who cannot pass it.

If a guild cannot kill a boss, yes, they are more likely to stop raiding / disband. Same reason why so many guilds skipped Crucible, they deemed it too difficult, or too time consuming, or not enough time before 8.2 to bother, and contrary to TOV it didn't even have unique transmogs, all "good" it had was some trinkets and weapons you could abuse in pvp... and a lot of raiders don't care about pvp.

Anyway what you described isn't "raid tier lasting too long" / "content drought" more like general burnt out / tiredness due to the raid being either not rewarding enough, or too hard, or both, for these guilds. Raids in the past that awarded legendaries, mounts, unique set bonuses etc. while not having competition in form of m+ for top gear encouraged guilds to stick around, nowadays it's harder and harder to find people motivated to raid. So as many say "the roster boss" is the hardest fight.

[Xaviaton]

I think November for the launch is a bit late. The last two expansions came out in August. Not to mention as you said we have 8.3, possibly 8.3.5, and probably a 9.0 prepatch. So they'll be trickling in more content over that drought. I'd assume 9.0 prepatch will include the new DK start.

Might be, I'm honestly just going by youtuber predictions (from people who talked to devs at Blizzcon). It wouldn't surprise me at all that they just don't want to be committed to the August launch but want to try and make it anyways, I doubt they will re-do the BfA Azerite Beta fiasco where they released the core system on Beta three days before launch and could make no changes to it at all. I would honestly prefer a late release to them pushing it out to soon. Seeing as Shadowlands seems to market itself primarily on (re)building engaging core gameplay systems that will be the fundamentals for future expansions as well, rather than be relevant for this expansion only, rushing would be disastrous.

I think the new DK start is slated for 8.3 if you've p repurchased Shadowlands already but that is hardly engaging content if it's just a starting zone that wanna complete once at most.

[Osmeric]

It didn't used to be part of the MMO cycle. Subs grew dramatically under Vanilla and BC, and held steady throughout Wrath.

It was being concealed then by the great initial wave of fresh players coming into the game, as WoW broke out into a large market that had never played MMOs before.

When that growth ended, as it had to, the underlying cycle (and decay over time from one expansion to the next) was revealed.

[Yriel]

do u even know what i was talking about -.- ?

but the majority did NOT leave, for 6 years the sub number was increasing in exponential lvl, heck u can't even notice the (was it 4 or 6 million? can't remember, let's assume low case of 4) total drop of 4 million chineese player in TBC when wrath was out, in case u didn't know wrath was banned from china, and blizz had to change almost everything in it, u can even check right now DK is called 'unhappy knight' in china, or how Bonestorm boss looks totally different there

Blizzard said countless times that their player retention was always rather low, it was just that WoW was super in for several years so there were always more people joining than leaving. Didn't they say that the majority of players didn't even reach max level?
At some point the game got old and the kids rather played Mobas and battle royales and so the sub numbers dropped.

[exsanguinate]

I'm fine with gap fillers like Halion was. I don't know why they don't do this anymore. There is nothing wrong with it tbh. It's additional content you can play, nothing more. The game has become way to competetive that blizzard is just afraid to add simple content to keep players interested. iT mIgHt cOuLd hUrT pRoGrEsSiVe rAiDiNg.

[sam86]

They did. There was also a way greater amount of new players trying WoW.

how exactly did the 'majority' leave, when more ppl joined than the ones who left?

- - - Updated - - -

Blizzard said countless times that their player retention was always rather low, it was just that WoW was super in for several years so there were always more people joining than leaving. Didn't they say that the majority of players didn't even reach max level?
At some point the game got old and the kids rather played Mobas and battle royales and so the sub numbers dropped.

if u talking about trial accounts in their older form back then, they also stated that their own number isn't trusted due to the influx of many bot farmers that's why they weren't sure if ppl do actually leave, or it is just flat out a farm bot who wants to publish his website without care if he gets banned or not
they did in end revamp system (in cata) to be more friendly toward new players

[Unholyground]

The classes are boring in retail as they have stagnated for 3 years now in most cases, I want to see major overhauls to many of the specs in Shadowlands when it releases in October.