Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[Edward Wu]

People will just call it Nostalgia, but TBC and Wrath I just had a far better time than in SL. They felt more "free-flowing" experiences. The game is too engineered at this point, if you get what I mean.

[aceperson]

People will just call it Nostalgia, but TBC and Wrath I just had a far better time than in SL. They felt more "free-flowing" experiences. The game is too engineered at this point, if you get what I mean.

i totally get what you mean. i've been using dark souls 3 to get this point across. if there is a complex, yet rewarding system, then it should be made as such and reward people for doing it. but don't make it so people think they HAVE to learn how to do it. i can't parry for crap in dark souls so i never learned. i just got good at dodge rolling. i also ignored resistances completely because i didn't understand the system. yet i was still able to beat the game.

right now, wow expects you to do dungeons, and then more dungeons, and then dailies to grind reputation and resources, and then raid, and then run even more dungeons. it isn't exactly a free chart of what you can do. also i think a segment from an old preach video might help show what you mean.

https://youtu.be/g75YgZL-HuI?t=688

this was done back in wod but it shows the options and choices players used to have compared to what we have today.

[Dracullus]

Nice excuse there. Same game lead and devs, same shitty and grindy design philosophy catering only to hardcore players + endless pruning of classes because Ion does not have half a brain to make them interesting. The result? Same reception shown by players leaving in droves. Returning players were brought back each time by the hype and old-time love for the game but were disappointed each time due to the same shitty output by this braindead EJ game lead who is only good at raid design and nothing more. Poor Blizzard now have to bank on old content like Classic and TBC to attract back the players. Ion should be fucking ashamed that he has to rely on the good work by predecessors to save his job. Blizzard should have let him remain as lead encounter designer and not as overall lead.

Yes, Ion is responsible for something that is clearly a pattern for 10 years or maybe even more. And somehow he put spell on people every 2 years and bring more and more on launch for some reason. Must be his lizard eyes.

Btw, if current bitching comments are so brainless and dull, game really lacks SERIOUS issues (beside rather unusual long wait between content patches). 2 years ago there were real problems to solve, not "I want better gear but I don't want to do content that require moving a finger".

[huth]

right now, wow expects you to do dungeons, and then more dungeons, and then dailies to grind reputation and resources, and then raid, and then run even more dungeons. it isn't exactly a free chart of what you can do. also i think a segment from an old preach video might help show what you mean.

Or you could just not do those if you don't want to. The game doesn't expect you to do anything.

[Edward Wu]

i totally get what you mean. i've been using dark souls 3 to get this point across. if there is a complex, yet rewarding system, then it should be made as such and reward people for doing it. but don't make it so people think they HAVE to learn how to do it. i can't parry for crap in dark souls so i never learned. i just got good at dodge rolling. i also ignored resistances completely because i didn't understand the system. yet i was still able to beat the game.

right now, wow expects you to do dungeons, and then more dungeons, and then dailies to grind reputation and resources, and then raid, and then run even more dungeons. it isn't exactly a free chart of what you can do. also i think a segment from an old preach video might help show what you mean.

https://youtu.be/g75YgZL-HuI?t=688

this was done back in wod but it shows the options and choices players used to have compared to what we have today.

I wonder if this is a consequence of them wanting to keep as many types of content relevant for the longest? Dungeons must be relevant all expansion long unlike the early days of WoW, so Blizzard's solution is to throw them in your face and dare you not to do them. Each individual dungeon is not rewarding, but if you can muster the will to do at least 10 each week, every single week, you can steadily (but surely) grow your character's power.

I guess maybe I'm just not a big fan of the Vault in general? I wonder if the game would be better off if they just deleted the Vault from the game and just made loot drops more rewarding in your everyday dungeon runs. It's probably the case that because there's (almost) guaranteed upgrades for you from the Vault each week, they have to tone down any rewards you get from running your everyday content throughout the week.

[Kralljin]

People will just call it Nostalgia, but TBC and Wrath I just had a far better time than in SL. They felt more "free-flowing" experiences. The game is too engineered at this point, if you get what I mean.

I think a lot of it came down, at least in TBC, that a player had a lot more agency when it came to gearing your character because the reward structure wasn't as streamlined.

I could look at my character and see "Hm, i got a shitty belt, what are my options?"
Maybe there is a decent belt in a heroic dungeons with some sockets, maybe a craftable one exists, or a Rep one, with the standard sources of PvP and raids also being an option.

This varied from slot to slot, your characters class and spec, now it's:
"I have a shitty belt, what are options?"
Grind M+ X
Get gud at PvP
Get one from raiding
Maybe you get lucky on the weekly chest

Repeat this for virtually every single slot, on every single character, regardless of class or spec.

Due to the less streamlined itemization, certain items were better than what was initially available from raids, giving everybody a clear a strong incentize to acquire that item.
And even if you couldn't be arsed to grind rep, you just passed on a single item, that's not the end of the world, if you say no to M+ on Retail, a sizeable chunk of your character progression basically collapses because M+ basically hands out rewards for every single slot possible.

Also, at least Classic and TBC were frontloaded, you had to put in a lot of hours initially to get your shit done, but once you're over the hill and dumped hundreds of hours into the game, you're done and either can just raidlog or do pursue other things in the game, no more hooks to get you logged in on a weekly / daily basis outside of Raid lockouts and Arena.

[Utrrabbit]

SL will soon pass BFA as the most boring expansion in recent years.

SL is more fun than the last 3 expansions. Me and my entire guild are on for hours every day.

- - - Updated - - -

SL on sale 20% off

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...ft-shadowlands

They do this every single year. It doew not mean a thing.

They did it with

Vanilla
TBC
wrath
Cata
Mop
wod
Legion
Bfa

[lockybalboa]

Yes, Ion is responsible for something that is clearly a pattern for 10 years or maybe even more. And somehow he put spell on people every 2 years and bring more and more on launch for some reason. Must be his lizard eyes.

Btw, if current bitching comments are so brainless and dull, game really lacks SERIOUS issues (beside rather unusual long wait between content patches). 2 years ago there were real problems to solve, not "I want better gear but I don't want to do content that require moving a finger".

I certainly don't remember Wotlk and TBC or even MoP losing half of their subs before the first proper patch lmao? The point is simple, and brainless fanboys do not seem to comprehend or want to admit : Player retention is certainly possible if the content put out is enticing enough for them to do so.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I certainly don't remember Wotlk and TBC or even MoP losing half of their subs before the first proper patch lmao? The point is simple, and brainless fanboys do not seem to comprehend or want to admit : Player retention is certainly possible if the content put out is enticing enough for them to do so.

While I agree that up until part way through cata the game had a different design philosophy compared to today, your argument is flawed. The game was still snowballing at that point. People quit every day, just way more people kept giving the game a try up until WotLK. A few years later in '14 Blizzard announced 100 million accounts made when the game was at around 7million players. So you can deduce from that and the overall numbers still reported back then that an enormous amount of players must have tried and given up on the game through all of it's live time. By the end of WotLK WoW had churned through the majority of it's potential customer base. So saying it lost half of them is kinda nonsense, as we simply don't know the different in and out streams of players.

[lockybalboa]

While I agree that up until part way through cata the game had a different design philosophy compared to today, your argument is flawed. The game was still snowballing at that point. People quit every day, just way more people kept giving the game a try up until WotLK. A few years later in '14 Blizzard announced 100 million accounts made when the game was at around 7million players. So you can deduce from that and the overall numbers still reported back then that an enormous amount of players must have tried and given up on the game through all of it's live time. By the end of WotLK WoW had churned through the majority of it's potential customer base. So saying it lost half of them is kinda nonsense, as we simply don't know the different in and out streams of players.

I'm not expecting WoW to continue having the same number of subs it had back then during its heyday. I am talking about retention proportion. Given the huge amount of subs during wotlk and tbc or mop why was there not a 50% reduction of subs back then? Simple. The content back then were quality enough to retain players. Content for the past few expansions had been shite. Simple as that. If an alarming 50% loss of subs before even the 1st proper patch is released is not indication enough of that to remove the wool off your FB eyes then I don't know what will.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I'm not expecting WoW to continue having the same number of subs it had back then during its heyday. I am talking about retention proportion. Given the huge amount of subs during wotlk and tbc or mop why was there not a 50% reduction of subs back then? Simple. The quality back then were quality enough to retain players. Content during the past few expansions were shite. Simple as that. If an alarming 50% loss of subs before even the 1st proper patch is released is not indication enough of that to remove the wool off your FB eyes then I don't know what will.

The subs today just spike like crazy, because the gigantic latent playerbase of people that want to see the new shit . Once they have they leave again because the aging playerbase no longer has the fortitude to slog through all of it. Also calling me a FB is kinda laughable, as I'm certainly not in the crowed of desperate fanboys here who only comes here to whine about other people not verbally rimming Blizzard enough. I'm just pointing out that there is more to statistics of this nature than you account for.

[lockybalboa]

The subs today just spike like crazy, because the gigantic latent playerbase of people that want to see the new shit . Once they have they leave again because the aging playerbase no longer has the fortitude to slog through all of it. Also calling me a FB is kinda laughable, as I'm certainly not in the crowed of desperate fanboys here who only comes here to whine about other people not verbally rimming Blizzard enough. I'm just pointing out that there is more to statistics of this nature than you account for.

Oh boy. Here we go. It's the players' fault again. Ageism, and blame the shift in human nature. Never an issue with the game's overly grindy, boring and tedious content and shitty and overly-simplistic class design. Might as well blame the wind and weather while we're at it lmao. You lot are really getting ridiculous. One thing I've learnt is to not waste time engaging in a merry-go-round with FBs.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I certainly don't remember Wotlk and TBC or even MoP losing half of their subs before the first proper patch lmao? The point is simple, and brainless fanboys do not seem to comprehend or want to admit : Player retention is certainly possible if the content put out is enticing enough for them to do so.

You know that with the math shadowlands would be about at the same sub numbers as mop right?

They said shadowlands out paced any expan in the last decade so
It would have to beat the 12 million of cata. Losing 40% of that would put them some where around 7m.

Mop for comparison only went up to 10m and with in a similar time frame went to around 7m.

So ya it technically only lost 30% compared to 40% but that would only because the starting point was lower.

[ro9ue]

You know that with the math shadowlands would be about at the same sub numbers as mop right?

They said shadowlands out paced any expan in the last decade so
It would have to beat the 12 million of cata. Losing 40% of that would put them some where around 7m.

Mop for comparison only went up to 10m and with in a similar time frame went to around 7m.

So ya it technically only lost 30% compared to 40% but that would only because the starting point was lower.

They said SL the expansion box itself outsold any other in the shortest period of time because it sold 3.4mil copies or something in the first weekend. I think they attributed that lift to people being quarantined with Covid. Most 3rd party algorithms show player activity for retail fluctuating between 2 and 4 mil concurrent players.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They said SL the expansion box itself outsold any other in the shortest period of time because it sold 3.4mil copies or something in the first weekend. I think they attributed that lift to people being quarantined with Covid. Most 3rd party algorithms show player activity for retail fluctuating between 2 and 4 mil concurrent players.

They also said this.

World of Warcraft franchise engagement is at its highest level for this stage ahead of an expansion in a decade, with Shadowlands presales well ahead of any prior expansion.

Which would have to put it at 12m at launch to match cata.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...-Investor-Call

As far as third party stuff goes there really isn’t any worth a damn as there pretty much always contradicted by actual blizzard data in investor calls.

[ro9ue]

They also said this.



Which would have to put it at 12m at launch to match cata.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...-Investor-Call

As far as third party stuff goes there really isn’t any worth a damn as there pretty much always contradicted by actual blizzard data in investor calls.

There is no actual Blizzard data. That quote is just vague language to keep investors optimistic. I highly, highly doubt WoW had anywhere near 12mil players during the tail end of BFA, one of the worst expansions in the history of the game.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

There is no actual Blizzard data. That quote is just vague language to keep investors optimistic. I highly, highly doubt WoW had anywhere near 12mil players during the tail end of BFA, one of the worst expansions in the history of the game.

I mean there is blizzard data we
Just don’t get to see it, but that doesn’t matter as the investor calls have to be reported truthfully or they would have so many people up there asses which would cost them so much money, IE they would never take that risk.

People don’t have to believe it but that’s how it works so shadowlands launch must have been at cata’s levels. That of course would just be pure subs though there’s no way to say what the break up is between shadowlands and classic other then shadowlands Is above other recent expans as they said in the Q4 report.

[thunterman]

The biggest issue with Shadowlands isn't even to do with the game itself really, I feel like it was still released too early. There simply isn't enough content in 9.0 to tide us over for as long as it needs too, quite frankly, it should of released in January at the earliest, we'd be 3 months in and keeping an eye out for 9.1 on the PTR which would feel great in comparison to reality.

It's a good foundation so far, it just needs more content. I did CN, I've done hundreds of M+ runs and to the point where aside from the vault I couldn't get an upgrade... I've just gradually started playing less and right now I'm levelling alts up to kill the time / playing other games in anticipation for 9.1.

[darklogrus]

I mean there is blizzard data we
Just don’t get to see it, but that doesn’t matter as the investor calls have to be reported truthfully or they would have so many people up there asses which would cost them so much money, IE they would never take that risk.

People don’t have to believe it but that’s how it works so shadowlands launch must have been at cata’s levels. That of course would just be pure subs though there’s no way to say what the break up is between shadowlands and classic other then shadowlands I’d above other recent expans as they said in the Q4 report.

The figures are accurate, description of the product is just blanket statements. "Strong engagement" can mean something completely different to 2 people. It's like saying Wow players avg 46mins a day. Maybe to someone that statement is true for 1 person to someone else though its not..

[ro9ue]

I mean there is blizzard data we
Just don’t get to see it, but that doesn’t matter as the investor calls have to be reported truthfully or they would have so many people up there asses which would cost them so much money, IE they would never take that risk.

People don’t have to believe it but that’s how it works so shadowlands launch must have been at cata’s levels. That of course would just be pure subs though there’s no way to say what the break up is between shadowlands and classic other then shadowlands Is above other recent expans as they said in the Q4 report.

Yes, they do have to report truthfully which is why they said vague stuff and didn't give any numbers. There's all kinds of things you can infer from that wording. Engagement could be player activity in game or it could mean clicks on the website. Engagement doesn't need to mean subscription. Franchise could and probably does include Classic WoW.