Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It was, I even agree on that. The first weeks for Shadowlands were really good. But the fall after honeymoon might be even harder than with BfA, which is... something. I think even WoD managed to have a less steep decline because BRF came 2.5 months after release and people were busy by that. WoD just plummeted after the horrible 6.1 and BRF was done. Shadowlands right now just exists and this will be the status quo for at least 2-3 more months. I mean from BRF to 6.2 it was only ~ 4.5 months, so that helped as well, but people were burned out by the lack of content. I still can’t believe that Shadowlands‘ first content patch comes after the same time as WoD‘s last.

There is no basis for a steeper drop drop then BFA or legion the last investor report said it was ahead of both and we have nothing to go off of since that.

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The issue is the intensity of the pattern. Yes, people leave. No, not half the playerbase. Yes, people come back for the first patch. No, the first patch shouldn't take as long as the second patch.

Even the stat site that sited the 40% drop said it was the norm and it put shadowlands back to normal post launch numbers.

[Aleksej89]

story in shadowlands so far is overall the worst story we had in wow.
denathrius is doing his best but even he can't carry the dead weight known as zovaal and simpvanas.
hopefully the upcoming patches actually make the story worth paying attention to.

also the covenants after finishing storyline are surprisingly useless and dull.
and the lack of something like suramar (expansive solo or party story questing in open world) is sorely missing.

[LordVargK]

Well said.

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Exactly. WoW Shadowlands is just not "fun". It's lost its luster and this expansion has no soul it feels lifeless and generic.

Waiting for the white knight simps, that defend Blizzard and this game no matter what, to tell me how wrong I am, and I have no clue LOL ok.

Buzzwords, buzzwords, buzzwords. Explain what the "soul" of the game is. What the hell is a "luster"? How csn a game be lifeless? SL has everything Legion, BfA and previous expansions had. What is exactly is missing? Classes are in better shape right now than in BfA and Legion at this point of the expansion. Try to be objective. You not liking the game is fine, maybe the theme is not for you, maybe you don't have friends to play with atm. But at least try to argue for your position. Just insulting and calling names does not do your opinion a favour.

[EyelessCrow]

Isn't Blizzard almost doing the same since the removal of tier sets back in BfA?

I mean unless you want to call the monthly fee charging for them, Blizzard isn't selling each set for the same price, just at a different hue. I think they have started doing the same with portals and pets.

The thing is, PoE is a F2P game, much unlike WoW. But don't let such minor details discourage you

Lol I absolutely love that you think F2P games are truly F2P, that they exist purely for people to log on, pay nothing, and continue to exist. That it isn't a fact that psychological triggers are employed to get you to buy things. Free to play...laughable. If I wanted to make the most aggressively monetized game I could, I'd make a free to play.

[valax]

Shadowlands is certainly *Not* climbing the ladder, when its the expansion that lost over 1/2 of the player base, thats just a harsh fact.

Im not saying that Shadowlands didnt have better ideas than BFA it did, but the execution evidently shows visual evidence that years of up and downhill promises are showing their fatigue.

Blizz would honestly be better making WoW 2.

We had yet do discover Shadowlands was climbing the ladder of a slide actually.

[Goge]

Welp, this thread didn't age very well did it?

[Nyel]

There is no basis for a steeper drop drop then BFA or legion the last investor report said it was ahead of both and we have nothing to go off of since that.

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Even the stat site that sited the 40% drop said it was the norm and it put shadowlands back to normal post launch numbers.

Fluff talk. The next financial report is coming and TBC isn't there yet to make it look better than it is. Expecting Shadowlands to do better than the last expansions, especially with the massive delay of 9.1, is pretty optimistic.

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*snip*

I have hopefully made my point: In a side-by-side comparison SL has definitly not more, but arguably less Systems than Legion and BfA. And nearly all of them require way less time investment than before. Whether or not those systems are more complicated is up to the individual player (but honestly, everything is better than corruption), but overall I can't take someone seriously, who complains about the systems in SL, but praises Legion. Either that player does not play SL or has not played the beginning of Legion.

I don't agree that Shadowlands has less systems as it's just not the case. Shadowlands has a ton of systems build into just one system that are mostly useless or just not fun. That's the biggest problem here. You as a Warlock are not using your Covenant ability -> design fail, as your signature Covenant ability should be mandatory in your rotation. I already wrote that in my other post, so not going to repeat myself here.

Systems that are useless don't help anyone. People will just leave them alone and the development time is pretty much wasted. Warfronts come to my mind which had the same fate, Islands not so much as Torghast is basically exactly that.

Legions had systems, but did (most of) them better. And they were more fun and had more purpose than all the mini games right now. That's a point we don't have to disagree one, but Legion for sure is the more well-received expansion overall (yes, I can already say that). Legion had its problems (AP grind in the beginning, random legendaries), but where it succeeded, it was excellent.

[The Stormbringer]

First WoW expansion I've passed on, so speak for yourself, I suppose?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Fluff talk. The next financial report is coming and TBC isn't there yet to make it look better than it is. Expecting Shadowlands to do better than the last expansions, especially with the massive delay of 9.1, is pretty optimistic.

Not really how numbers work.

SL might have a lower point then BFA wod ect but the decline literally can’t be as steep or steeper then them with the investor call info we got.

[Nyel]

Not really how numbers work.

SL might have a lower point then BFA wod ect but the decline literally can’t be as steep or steeper then them with the investor call info we got.

Your point of view and my point of view don't share the same timelines. You're looking at the Q4 report which accounts the first 1-2 months of Shadowlands. I'm talking about the situation right now, so the decline can very well be steeper than the one after WoD / BfA - we officially just don't know yet, so it's an assumption. Q1/21 has nothing to boost their numbers, plus the delayed 9.1 - I'm curious how bad they're doing at the moment. And if TBC doesn't launch in June (and neither 9.1), Q2/21 will be a disaster for them financially with absolutely nothing to boost their numbers. But I'm optimistic that they'll launc TBC in May and June to counter the massive drop of retail.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Your point of view and my point of view don't share the same timelines. You're looking at the Q4 report which accounts the first 1-2 months of Shadowlands. I'm talking about the situation right now, so the decline can very well be steeper than the one after WoD / BfA - we officially just don't know yet, so it's an assumption. Q1/21 has nothing to boost their numbers, plus the delayed 9.1 - I'm curious how bad they're doing at the moment. And if TBC doesn't launch in June (and neither 9.1), Q2/21 will be a disaster for them financially with absolutely nothing to boost their numbers. But I'm optimistic that they'll launc TBC in May and June to counter the massive drop of retail.

Your original post that I quoted says what time frame you meant In it.

I think even WoD managed to have a less steep decline because BRF came 2.5 months after release and people were busy by that.

If you want to say that post is wrong but the next quarter could be steeper then wod or BFA then sure it’s possible.

[Super Kami Dende]

Both ff14 build on your character rather than take away. Expansions build you up and the world up rather than shrink it and turn it into Diablo 3 seasons the mmorpg

Oh please, do tell how FF14 does anything different to how WoW does.

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That's just natural gear progression. But you don't lose entire game systems or half your toolkit. Pretending it is similar to artifact weapons is disingenuous at best.

Artifact Weapons were just new gear progression systems. FF14 literally has no customization in your Job abilities. All you have is the gear treadmill. often culminating in just 1 relic weapon you upgrade til the end of an expac then rinse repeat for the next expac.

FFXIV is hardly a masterpiece when it comes to character growth. Also, I lost parts of my Toolkit coming into the latest FFXIV expac with their ability prune, so that's just plain disingenuous yourself.

[Nyel]

Oh please, do tell how FF14 does anything different to how WoW does.

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Artifact Weapons were just new gear progression systems. FF14 literally has no customization in your Job abilities. All you have is the gear treadmill. often culminating in just 1 relic weapon you upgrade til the end of an expac then rinse repeat for the next expac.

FFXIV is hardly a masterpiece when it comes to character growth. Also, I lost parts of my Toolkit coming into the latest FFXIV expac with their ability prune, so that's just plain disingenuous yourself.

Artifact weapons were the entire class progression system for Legion. So was Azerite in BfA and so is Covenants in Shadowlands - and all of it gets eventually removed, we might keep 10% of the stuff introduced as a new talent or whatever, but the overwhelming amount of progress we made in each of those three expansions is thrown out the window at their end.

On top of losing that, Blizzard regularly prunes classes and their skills (just to bring some of it back as it happened in Shadowlands, unfortunately most of it was utter trash).

Blizzard's character progression system since Legion is completely bonkers.

[Wangming]

FFXIV is hardly a masterpiece when it comes to character growth. Also, I lost parts of my Toolkit coming into the latest FFXIV expac with their ability prune, so that's just plain disingenuous yourself.

Maybe, but it doesn't have to be to outclass the travesty that is current retail WoW.

[Incitatus]

I must be in the minority here as this is the first expansion that I have stopped playing since starting in 1.7.

[Osmeric]

Welp, this thread didn't age very well did it?

Aged like fine milk.

[Wangming]

You let milk age?

I do. I call it cheese. There's this crazy dude over in Tamriel who can't get enough of the stuff.

[Wangming]

Btw....i think that guy already left the company right?.....(for real, im not sure if he left or not, since so many of the original devs already left the game time ago...)

Yeah, he left. But the guy who took his place has the same face and even looks like him,so it's all good.

[Osmeric]

You let milk age?

Not intentionally.

[ro9ue]

Well, now we know why they dont have money for Devs.....THEY INVESTED IN CLONING TECHNOLOGY!

Now, the real problem here is both the endgame and the lore of Shadowlands. I don't know if you guys agree with me, but it doesn't look like Shadowlands is going to last past "Chains of Dominations" + "Another Patch". It looks like this expansion is going to be a short one.

I'm hoping to see way more from datamining PTR than they talked about at Blizzconline. If 9.1 is pretty much what we've already seen, WoW is a dead game, at least to me, for the remainder of 2021 assuming a 9.2 wouldn't release until Dec/Jan.