If 9.1 Bombs...

[Spikeychris]

Yeah, no one believed that Rome would fall, until it did.

Bear in mind, with the power of hindsight one can see that the majority of "WoW Killers" launched during what one can pretty much say was the prime of the game, 2008-2011 was were multiple "WoW killers" launched while the game had 10M+ subs.

Now, a decade later, the game has had 7 rough years under its belt, WoD & BfA absolutely took their toll, while people are generally more positive towards Legion, it got carried by large extent of it being a new thing and a very solid content schedule - which can be partially attributed to them throwing half of WoD under the bus.

With the perception now turning on SL as well, it doesn't take a genius to figure that new contenders will have a much better shot at taking a bite out of WoW's playerbase.

Bear in mind, Classic is also a massive indicator that the people who dislike the modern direction of WoW isn't some insignificant minority - and Classic is a 15 year old game with numerous, objective flaws.

Sorry but how is Classic a massive indicator that people who dislike the modern direction of WoW isn't some insigificant minority when the entire classic playerbase is now 2-300k people and probably at best 1/5 and at worst 1/10th of the current retail playerbase?

Classic brought a lot of people back to WoW but the reality is only a fraction of the classic players are still actually there.

If anything classic shows that the playerbase doesn't want recycled shit they want new content (seeing as Shadowlands was the fastest selling PC game of all time - ok for a week but it still sold more initial copies than any other expansion).

[baskev]

Yes, wow is dying, again and again and again and again.

/bow
/applaud

Indeed. Its always a slum after a raid patch.
And even if its more. Its a 16..17? year old game right now. So the fact its still going is impressive.

I disagree. Not dying, but there is cause for concern.

euuhhhh sarcasm :P

And its freaking normal for wow the have a slum after raid tiers.

[DesoPL]

First question what comes to my mind is... Is there anything what can be done to fix it?

[Kralljin]

Sorry but how is Classic a massive indicator that people who dislike the modern direction of WoW isn't some insigificant minority when the entire classic playerbase is now 2-300k people and probably at best 1/5 and at worst 1/10th of the current retail playerbase?

Because Classic quite frankly has a massive baggage, such as World buffs, massive class imbalances, horrendeous PvP system, etc..

Classic brought a lot of people back to WoW but the reality is only a fraction of the classic players are still actually there.

I'm not implying that Classic is bigger than Retail, but when a decent portion of your playerbase prefers a 15 year old version over your newest game, it should give Blizzard something to think about.

And the fact that Blizzard was absolutely surprised by Classic's success, Blizzard having no issues to release Classic content right next Retail and the majority of Servers not being dead yet (despite what some people claim), it's just silly handwave this all aside.

If anything classic shows that the playerbase doesn't want recycled shit they want new content (seeing as Shadowlands was the fastest selling PC game of all time - ok for a week but it still sold more initial copies than any other expansion).

Okay, some people don't want re releases - what does this have to do with overall design of the game?

Disregarding that SL had the benefit of the pandemic, also not taking into account that people merely checking out the newest expansion and then dropping WoW for another two years isn't exactly a proof of success for a game that's still having loads of content releases in between and a sub fee to boot.
Comparing SL in that aspect something such as TBC or Wotlk is downright dishonest, simply because pre ordering wasn't as much of a thing back then as it is now.

[Alroxas]

from what we know, internally they are already in panic mode...

O rly? How do we "know"? Do we have direct reports? Did Jason Schreier get the inside scope? No? Then we only have really hearsay comments and speculation.

Maybe it won't be evident immediately, but a couple months into 9.1 and players start leaving in droves again and the forums are aflame with the usual, unaddressed complaints?

Honestly isn't this the Norm for WoW now? Xpac launches, MAU surges then drops as players leave for a while, then a new content patch drops, MAU surges again only to drop again after content is consumed (and gets stale), repeat. Some surges are higher than others and some drops (in MAU) is sharper than others but that's the normal cyclical nature of WoW.... Or any mmorpg.

If we look at FFXIV or GW2, we probably would see similar trends. When there's new content = see a surge in MAUs for a while then it drops off as players "consume" said content and get bored. No surprises there.

[Oneirophobia]

I don’t think 9.1 will bomb, its previewed content looks really good.

But the longer it takes, the more people will lose interest and just leave. And then there’s TBC which is a bigger motivation to play than 9.1, if you’re torn between them.

The WoW team is in dire need of new talents and a new head, Ion is part of the problem. If the expansion after Shadowlands is just Legion 4.0 this game is basically dead. They have a chance to revive retail with an expansion that has the scope of Legion. If they don’t, I fear it will cause damage than can’t be undone (if Shadowlands didn’t do that already).

I truly believe it isn't entirely Ion, he's just the messenger. Everything wrong with Shadowlands seems to boil down to "Monthly Active Accounts" metrics which stinks of shareholder meddling. It feels like they took Legion, went "yeah this is great everyone seems to really be into this, how do we do this again but waaaay cheaper while we shovel devs and resources into re-releasing BC?"

He's an avid gamer and former WoW player, he has to know time gating at this magnitude feels shitty. He's got to. It was the same deal with Ghostcrawler. After GC left he specifically said "I like working for Riot instead as I don't have to devote all my time to worrying about whether or not someone's grandmother is going to stay subscribed this month, I can just focus on what makes the game fun." I doubt it has changed for Ion in any direction but worse.

[Dundebuns]

The first option shows how clueless people are. The reason this expansion is getting so tepid is NOT due to the development team. Blizzard has some incredibly talented programmers and artists. The woes stem from the upper brass. They tell the developers what to do and the developers will get very little say if any at all.

[tomten]

Personally I just think WoW is old, and a lot of the progress the newer MMOs are making probably just aren't feasible in the 2004 ancient architecture.

This is such a bullshit myth I can't understand why it still lives....
Do you really believe wow is running an engine from 2004? Because it doesn't.....
They can do whatever they want lol.... Even the hard coded bag slots were just to time consuming and costly....was never about if its possible...
Because 99% of anything you can dream up is possible..... It just isn't cost effective.

[Oneirophobia]

Pretty sure google auto-fill is taking your history into account... so if you read or watch a lot of youtube about how bad shadowlands is it will auto-fill that in google.
Not 100% sure though.

Try it yourself, mine is the exact same but I'm generally a white knight for WoW and don't watch Twitch or Youtube streamers. :'D

[bagina]

WoW is a Frankenstein's monster, a patchwork made of different parts that accumulated over time. It's in agony, crying for sweet release of death. No point in any drastic changes, unless they want to make WoW 2.

[Kumorii]

Try it yourself, mine is the exact same but I'm generally a white knight for WoW and don't watch Twitch or Youtube streamers. :'D

Guess you are right

[Nyel]

I truly believe it isn't entirely Ion, he's just the messenger. Everything wrong with Shadowlands seems to boil down to "Monthly Active Accounts" metrics which stinks of shareholder meddling. It feels like they took Legion, went "yeah this is great everyone seems to really be into this, how do we do this again but waaaay cheaper while we shovel devs and resources into re-releasing BC?"

He's an avid gamer and former WoW player, he has to know time gating at this magnitude feels shitty. He's got to. It was the same deal with Ghostcrawler. After GC left he specifically said "I like working for Riot instead as I don't have to devote all my time to worrying about whether or not someone's grandmother is going to stay subscribed this month, I can just focus on what makes the game fun." I doubt it has changed for Ion in any direction but worse.

He’s doing this for the third expansion in a row. It worked in Legion because it wasn’t so arbitrary. It didn’t work in BfA. And I can guarantee you that it didn’t work in Shadowlands either. The thing is, they even made it partially worse in Shadowlands, although it already didn’t work in BfA. I think Ion is to blame here as much as everyone else on the higher management level. He comes up with these horrible ideas and if not, he’s the one who greenlights them. Shareholders don’t dictate you what mechanics to design. Create time consuming mechanics, but make them fun. Ion failed with this two expansions in a row now.

- - - Updated - - -

The first option shows how clueless people are. The reason this expansion is getting so tepid is NOT due to the development team. Blizzard has some incredibly talented programmers and artists. The woes stem from the upper brass. They tell the developers what to do and the developers will get very little say if any at all.

Artists? Absolutely. Developers? Nope. WoW barely has talented developers anymore. If they do, the game wouldn’t just be regurgitated and boring sh*t from previous expansions in new (partially better, partiall worse) iterations.

[Dead Moose Fandango]

Then the worrrrrrrrld shall end! And you're not invited to the Rapture.

[Garybear]

I disagree. Not dying, but there is cause for concern.

Not really. To be honest I really hope all the people who complain that they aren't having fun actually just shut up and leave. The game would be way better off that way.

[Xravis]

What I need to see going forward is them actually putting in work to tune classes properly instead of aura buffing them so far they have been doing good with the whole ww thing and tank buffs but people panic because you never know when youre going to see blizzard next. Ideally I think they should hire someone to sit on the class discords to funnel ideas to upper management and they should not take these ideas as suggestions but more as mandatory changes, I say that because it seems like most of the people working on this game dont actually play the classes they are trying to fix if however they had input from people who play 30-40 hours a day on some of these classes the specs would be far better off. The last time classes were fun and interesting was legion which also happened to be one of the best expansions, it all starts from class design.

[Nyel]

These posts are just embarrassing at this point. The writing is on the wall. Why keep being deluded about it?

I don’t get exactly the same results due to regional differences, but mostly the options are looking like this.

[Santas]

I have been saying that big changes need to happen to the WoW team for years now.

[ZazuuPriest]

What I need to see going forward is them actually putting in work to tune classes properly instead of aura buffing them so far they have been doing good with the whole ww thing and tank buffs but people panic because you never know when youre going to see blizzard next. Ideally I think they should hire someone to sit on the class discords to funnel ideas to upper management and they should not take these ideas as suggestions but more as mandatory changes, I say that because it seems like most of the people working on this game dont actually play the classes they are trying to fix if however they had input from people who play 30-40 hours a day on some of these classes the specs would be far better off. The last time classes were fun and interesting was legion which also happened to be one of the best expansions, it all starts from class design.

Do you honestly think blizzard doesn't know some specs are absolute dog water? They know, just like they know that there are talents for every class that 0.0% of the population takes or that some specs have 1 talent build and all the others are shit. They are not interested in complete balance and never have been.

[Eluvium]

i think anyone still subbed at this point is either happy with the product or unhappy but unable to find the courage to unsub because WoW can hold onto you like a vice grip.

[ZazuuPriest]

I have been saying that big changes need to happen to the WoW team for years now.

i doubt it has as much to do with the team as it does their corporate overlords. I mean there is plenty of evidence that the people actually working on this game still have a passion for it