This is World of Warcraft - Carbot new video

[Kralljin]

Those spikes and dips are pretty much the entire model for WoW's population over time, as well.

No, actually that's false, the sub graph did not show a sharp increases with expansion launches until ~MoP, even there, the spike was relatively tame.

The increase was relatively consistent over a period of time and its decline as well, but those huge spikes weren't a thing until WoD, the subs even flatlined during Cata launch.

Here I think you've simply misunderstood what I'm saying because you too apparently have a dim view of nostalgia as a concept or motivating force.

No, you just need to learn to differentiate, when people return to a game because of nostalgia, that's one thing.
However, when you downplay the continued success of a product by citing nostalgia, you are wrong, your previous posts did not make this distinction.

And nostalgia in this context implies that people feel solely attracted towards a game because of previous experiences, not because there is anything good about the game itself outside of those personal memories.

That's the crux, do not talk about "dim view" when you did not articulate this very simple distinction, saying something continues to be popular because of nostalgia is essentially saying "It's actually not good, people only like because of past experiences".

And frankly, i wouldn't be even surprised to learn that a lot of people are being lured to buy a new WoW expansion solely based on memories of how much fun they used have in WoW, meaning that nostalgia would also be a driving force behind Retail expansions nowadays.

[TBCCLOL]

But people unsubscribing may not be because of a content draught though, there may be other issues at play, like lost job, vacation, etc etc. We simply don't know. And as I said, there are people that don't unsubscribe but simply let it run for what ever reason without login on, so that dilutes that metric. IIRC Blizzard also commented on that once or twice in the past when they still gave sub nr's.

Also it's assuming that people log on to grind. We have no source on why people keep playing during a draught. Some may not even agree there is one.

And having around the same MAU for months on end seems to indicate people are willing to pay for a sub as well so apparently there is plenty to do because, to be honest, if people are still grinding anima then I think they haven't played much the past half year.

But the forcing to log on kind of tells enough about what you believe and I'll leave at this.

Thanks for the insight though, truly was wondering about it.

Sure people can stop sub because IRL no doubt, but when people stop playing the game because draught not IRL, they can find another game worth their time and WoW lose a subs or even more (if he was into MTX) you can find FF more suitable, or play LoL, PoE or whatever.
But if you make the game lasting longer during a draught because "must log to do that or rip" you avoid any chance to lose a buyer in most cases.

People log on for the grind, you must be naive to think otherwise, even if we scrap out the Pet Battle andy, the Xmog Hunter the rest of the playerbase right now is grinding on alts or on main for the 9.1 because

Covenant Swap ||| Legendary Craft to keep them in case 9.1 balance ||| Anima related stuff like Xmog or Mount

Covenant swap requires a lot of time, to just swap the covenant not even for something tangible, thing that could have been done without all this time consuming gate keeping
We had Azerite Respec in BFA, now you need to do M+ to fill a bar to respec covenant.

Why cant swap covenant like i can swap talent and or soulbind? Because MUA.


Legendary craft is basically farming Thorgast, that is truly a boring content on Live not comparable with the Alpha version, and that is the wide consensus here, on the GD forum and on reddit, you can argue they are not the totality but even from a booster pov, in these months I have like 1/30 of people asking for torgast boost instead of Curve or M+

Why i cant farm soul ashes and have it as BoA so i can craft gear on my alts if i want to reroll? Because MUA
Why i have to farm stygia that isnt BoA, weekly for sockets that cannot be made in the next patch but there will be a new currency to farm? Because MUA
Why Azerite in BFA wasnt like Legion Tier set that changed if I swapped spec but had to respec or to farm another item for 2nd spec? Because MUA

Anima related stuff : this is not really much a fuzz because, you can get anima until the end of the xpac and still unlock xmog and mounts, but the quantity of anima you get atm in the game is abysmall.

This is not really mandatory so not everybody care about xmog or mounts, but assume the average player is an xmog/mount hunter like Asmongold, you will still """""play""""" the game and thus keep pumping the MUA even if you are not really playing due to the current content.

Plus into MAU lets take in cosideration the legion of bots.


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So, yes is "forcing to log" because people could have been afk until 9.1 even after the announce but now people are farming, so logging, anima / covenant swap just in time for the 9.1, hence forcing you to login to get on track for the 9.1, if you cannot see these in game or on any platform, well enjoy the game as it atm if you truly like it.

[Aucald]

No, actually that's false, the sub graph did not show a sharp increases with expansion launches until ~MoP, even there, the spike was relatively tame.

The increase was relatively consistent over a period of time and its decline as well, but those huge spikes weren't a thing until WoD, the subs even flatlined during Cata launch.

I was referring to the later expansions (post-Cata) following WoW's relative heyday, the booming days of gradual population increase which reached its apex during WotLK. WoW plateaued around the close of WotLK and then entered the downward arcing motion we see today, with rises and fall-offs trending downward.

No, you just need to learn to differentiate, when people return to a game because of nostalgia, that's one thing.
However, when you downplay the continued success of a product by citing nostalgia, you are wrong, your previous posts did not make this distinction.

And nostalgia in this context implies that people feel solely attracted towards a game because of previous experiences, not because there is anything good about the game itself outside of those personal memories.

That's the crux, do not talk about "dim view" when you did not articulate this very simple distinction, saying something is popular because of nostalgia is essentially saying "It's actually not good, people only like because of past experiences".

Your confusion isn't due to a lack of differentiation or communication on my part. Since I never implied a connection between the nostalgic impulse to return to Classic and the continued success of the game, what you've essentially created here is a Strawman version of my original argument - I can't really argue with or against a complete misrepresentation of what I actually said. Especially since I've now said multiple times to multiple people that WoW Classic *is* good.

Something being popular due to nostalgia and also being good on its merits isn't mutually exclusive, either. Both things can be simultaneously true. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what I'm saying, and I think I've been pretty clear thus far. Whether we're talking past one another or you're willfully misinterpreting I'm not sure.

[Moozart]

Is this one of those things that get the poor people all riled up?

[Hellobolis]

It would however mean that Blizzard effectively throws all pretense aside and outright sells power on the store, which is pay to win. Period.

eh i'm with the other guy. having a middle man doesn't matter it's still pay2win. pretense or no.

however pay to win is not a black/white thing, it's a degree thing.

if only 0.1% of players pays2win the game isn't pay2win.
if 10% of player pays2win the game is pretty goddamn pay2win.

in wow it's probably more something along the lines of 25% pays to win a small amount, while 0.1% pays exorbitant amounts to win all the way.

it's a careful balance blizzard has to keep, but it's a sliding balance going more towards normalizing paying with every year. it's less players but more revenue every year after all.

i'm in the "i wouldn't play this if it wasn't for sunk cost" camp now i think. kinda funny cause a few years ago i was still in the "i wish they would just add grinds to the game to get the cash shop only items" camp.

[TBCCLOL]

And frankly, i wouldn't be even surprised to learn that a lot of people are being lured to buy a new WoW expansion solely based on memories of how much fun they used have in WoW, meaning that nostalgia would also be a driving force behind Retail expansions nowadays.

Dont worry this is not the case, because TBCC has better system than Retail.


Maybe people are more leaning towards Badge of Valor vendor system rather than farming IQD for 2 years because every 5 months there is a new version with 15 itm lvl extra so back to the farming.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Everytime you are playing Retail and something makes you wondering or asking "why the fuck this has not a catch up mechanism or account wide" is because MUA

Ya this isn’t how MUA works at all. There are almost no grinds in retail that take multiple months to do and the few things that are time gated like story quest let you skip the waiting if you come back past all the weekly gates giving you no reason to stay active for multiple months and not just come back when it’s all In.

There is also no difference between subs and MAU in the way you frame it they have always wanted you to stay on for multiple months and have been blatant about it with things like only a couple of loot drops from 40m raids on a weekly lock out. Heroic dungeons with daily lock outs and low drop rates. Daily quest limiting your progress with no catch ups or skips.

[TBCCLOL]

WoW isnt a Pay2Win and never will be, because isnt like a Mobile Asian game where you can get EXCLUSIVE UNIT or ITEMS that make you 100x stronger than anybody else.

Sure Mythic or Gladiator Gear >>>> HC and Rival Gear but like about what 5%-10%? isnt like 50% and you are god mode unstoppable.



People are more leaning towards Pay2SKIP, when i was an advertiser in Gallywix people bought Curve on their Alts even if they had the Curve achiv so they could pug it, just because pugging is aids with crossrealm, people cannot socialize if the server community doesnt exist, and people want truly to skip to the loot part.

Same as for M+ with the mounts achiv etc etc, people get the curve mount or just curve + some loot for their alts and they are fine.

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Ya this isn’t how MUA works at all. There are almost no grinds in retail that take multiple months to do and the few things that are time gated like story quest let you skip the waiting if you come back past all the weekly gates giving you no reason to stay active for multiple months and not just come back when it’s all In.

There is also no difference between subs and MAU in the way you frame it they have always wanted you to stay on for multiple months and have been blatant about it with things like only a couple of loot drops from 40m raids on a weekly lock out. Heroic dungeons with daily lock outs and low drop rates. Daily quest limiting your progress with no catch ups or skips.

No that is how MUA works, if you cannot see the grind(s) in retail get checked.


I mean maybe you are a LFR player and never did Maw dailies for Stygia -> Sockets so maybe you are unaware of the grind.

Or keep doing Torgast because ashes -> crafting legendaries just in case of an imminent reroll or whatever. I mean if you do WQ and farm Xmog isnt necessary i see



"Heroic dungeons with daily lock outs and low drop rates." if only HC dungeons didnt had like 15% chance each item to drop so you can do HC every day vs hoping you get lucky at the weekly lottery GV, plus HC dungeons have "epic" item as extra gear, the rest is always the same normal loot table so you can still get the gear doing normal in most cases, and that isnt a chore, is just playing the game because you do dungeons even for other things, not just for GV like on retail

[Lorgar Aurelian]

No that is how MUA works, if you cannot see the grind(s) in retail get checked.


I mean maybe you are a LFR player and never did Maw dailies for Stygia -> Sockets so maybe you are unaware of the grind.

Or keep doing Torgast because ashes -> crafting legendaries just in case of an imminent reroll or whatever. I mean if you do WQ and farm Xmog isnt necessary i see

The Maw daily’s are not a new thing post MAU reporting they have been gating things behind daily’s since Tbc with only a couple having skips like neither drakes and even those skids most couldn’t do.

Crafting items have also been limited like torghast with thinking’s like frozen orcs being limited again post MUA.

[Nnyco]

Quiet the straw man, reductionist, take. There is more nuance to this than simply "classic good, wow dead..."

Yeah, because we never seen this kinda behaviour on youtube before... oh fuckin wait. This video combined with the fact that he added asmontard to his previous video makes me kinda sad about carbot since it looks like hes going down the path of becoming yet another of those youtubers banking on hate to make more views.

[BossManRoth]

Same for you. If you don't like the video, just ignore it. It's completely optional to watch it.

Luckily, freedom of speech exists, so stuff like that can be created and publicly posted.

I never said the video shouldn't exist. I'm not calling for its removal. I'm calling him a whiny brat. I interacted, stated my opinion, and left it alone. I'm not trying to take it away from anyone else, which is ultimately what people who agree with him want, to remove the things they don't like with no consideration for others.

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Ok - I'll only say it once in this thread:

It devalues character progression.

Ill say it once, character progression in The Burning Crusade happens from 60-70. The game was designed with the assumption the player was already 60. If I want character progression in The Burning Crusade, I don't want to progress through Vanilla, so I skip even the last 2 levels in Vanilla content. That has no effect on anyone's gameplay but my own.

[Mahcake]

Personally I'd have to disagree with this sentiment. I'd much rather see people rocking their own cool style that they managed to acquire through raiding, dungeons, questing, farming, whatever and put their own personal spin on it than seeing a bunch of people wearing the same tier set. Admittedly, it's kind of both right now, since a lot of people will only just wear a specific tier set (which is fine if that's their preference), but at least it's their choice rather than just the gear they play the game in. The creativity and diversity of options are just so much more that way.

To put it another way, I think FF14 has the right of things when they say Glamour and Decorating are the true Endgame.

I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing and it surely can provide some motivation to run old content and make it relevant again. Collecting items can prolong playtime. At least the looks of armors, weapons etc.

On the other hand, I think it gives devs another reason to be more lazy and make some stuff less apealing, less detailed because they will just say “People are gonna transmog it anyway.” and I’m pretty sure it’s one of the reasons they gave up on class specific tier sets, thus make less content than in older expansions for the same price tag.

It doesn’t matter that much in other games as FFXIV with more realistic artstyle but in games like WoW, there’s a huge difference between a normal armor and a raid armor.

[Amorac]

People log on for the grind, you must be naive to think otherwise, even if we scrap out the Pet Battle andy, the Xmog Hunter the rest of the playerbase right now is grinding on alts or on main for the 9.1 because.

Assumption on your part. I for one am not login on to grind. Sure I do some WQ but that's just for whatever calling is up that I am willing to do and I do not do those every day. Pretty much everyone in my guild is not grinding, especially not for anima. Hell, I haven't done any dungeons at all let alone raided this expansion, while that used to be my most time spend in game, so my anima collecting is lower then average.

My guild mates however do M+ and Raid and have only recently been less online (since last week). Before that they were pvp'ing and whatever else they enjoyed doing.

Does this mean everybody still playing WoW now does this? No idea, but it's just seems far more logical then people feeling forced to log on to do stuff they don't want to do, and even pay for that.

You must be naïve to believe people will pay to do stuff they don't like to do. (Only doing this because you just had to do it yourself this way and was rather unneeded)

Covenant swap requires a lot of time, to just swap the covenant not even for something tangible, thing that could have been done without all this time consuming gate keeping

Must be a Mythic raider only problem to be honest, or even only world first raiders. But yea, that's me assuming the opposite of what you are doing. My assumption; most people picked the covenant they liked best and stuck to it and did M+ dungeons/raiding fine.

Legendary craft is basically farming Thorgast, that is truly a boring content on Live not comparable with the Alpha version, and that is the wide consensus here, on the GD forum and on reddit, you can argue they are not the totality but even from a booster pov, in these months I have like 1/30 of people asking for torgast boost instead of Curve or M+

My only real problem with Thorgast is that it takes to long, well Twisted corridors that is. Depending on class/spec it can be good fun, and unfortunately not for all imho.

Having a legendary is also more a high end player problem IMHO.

Why i cant farm soul ashes and have it as BoA so i can craft gear on my alts if i want to reroll? Because MUA

As if you could do the same in Vanilla, TBC or Wrath.. Wanted gear in vanilla as a fresh max level, sucks but no BOA tokens at all, so better hope people are willing to carry you in likely outdated content (raids/dungeons that don't drop anything they need). Or craft the regular green or maybe blue gear not unlike now.. Besides, getting a low level Legendary doesn't take that long, but I guess you want to be max ilevel within 1 minute of dinging max level? Like how it is in Vanilla and TBC.. o wait..

Plus into MAU lets take in cosideration the legion of bots.

Imagine all the sub money those bots generate as well.. non argument I'd say.

So, yes is "forcing to log" because people could have been afk until 9.1 even after the announce but now people are farming, so logging, anima / covenant swap just in time for the 9.1, hence forcing you to login to get on track for the 9.1, if you cannot see these in game or on any platform, well enjoy the game as it atm if you truly like it.

This is where it boils down to: you don't like the way the game is now, there for most of everybody who ever stopped playing does so for the same reasons you do, and everybody else is just wrong.

It's the same problem that so many on this forum seems to think everybody is a hardcore player and must be thinking the same. I know several people who log in every day for more hours then I do and just level a new char over and over and over again. I know a few who only log on to raid at the highest possible level when it was current not to be seen till next raid. I know some who log on for an hour, do the mission table and some quests and call it a day. So many different people who play the game in the way they like...

So, like I said, people usually don't pay for things they don't like to do. And most people are not first world raiders or high end M+ players.

Besides, what is there to do at max level in Vanilla or TBC if you are not raiding? Or if you had all heroics dungeons gear? Farming Rep? Gold? Other then leveling an alt that is, that you can't help gear up with your main, unless you want to dump gold into BOE for the alt..

[Mahcake]

Ill say it once, character progression in The Burning Crusade happens from 60-70. The game was designed with the assumption the player was already 60. If I want character progression in The Burning Crusade, I don't want to progress through Vanilla, so I skip even the last 2 levels in Vanilla content. That has no effect on anyone's gameplay but my own.

This is simply not true. For example, you have new/changed talents that you can use during leveling in Azeroth and which impact the way you play during that time. They surely kept in mind that there will be new people who will buy WoW after TBC and will start from level 1.

[Asrialol]

Making more money because there are fewer players and those players are like the whale in any mobile-gacha games, where they spent money on MTX as per : Mounts, Pet, Toy, Tokens for Gold to Buy stuff or boost instead of playing the game

it is surely a method to make more money with fewer players, no doubt at all.

They just shifted from "having 10milions players and thus 10 milion subs" to "having -lets say- 4 milion players but 2 milions of them are spending 3x due to MTX" is profitable? yes | is making the game worth to invest for shareholders? absolutely | is a litmus paper for quality and playerbase satisfaction? absolutely not.
Is factual the game went dive down in quality overall otherwise all these years of improvments should have maintained wotlk numbers no? or at least sligthly below, not 2milions (if we take these numbers as valid) nor FF14 should have been on par with WoW. Also the fact that the Classic playerbase is somehow near the same volume of Retail show us that there are a lot of people that doesnt like the current state but still like wow

Can you post the source that shows the amount of classic players and the amount of retail players? Haven't seen that. I assume you mean classic tbc though, Im sure classic is a ghost town now.

[Trbn]

Just wondering.

1 million subscribers vs 1 million monthly active users? Why is that such a bad thing?

At least with the MAU you know how many people at least logged on once. With subscribers you only have the amount of people who pay to be able to log in, but may not have.

And almost every MAU for WoW has in some way payed the sub costs, unless they play the free to play part of retail (not sure if retail is free till level 20?).

mau is combined number from all blizzard games

[Clozer]

I never said the video shouldn't exist. I'm not calling for its removal. I'm calling him a whiny brat. I interacted, stated my opinion, and left it alone. I'm not trying to take it away from anyone else, which is ultimately what people who agree with him want, to remove the things they don't like with no consideration for others.

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Ill say it once, character progression in The Burning Crusade happens from 60-70. The game was designed with the assumption the player was already 60. If I want character progression in The Burning Crusade, I don't want to progress through Vanilla, so I skip even the last 2 levels in Vanilla content. That has no effect on anyone's gameplay but my own.

This is clearly not what Blizzard thinks about TBCC - since you start at level 1 if you create a new character.

[Trbn]

if only 0.1% of players pays2win the game isn't pay2win.
if 10% of player pays2win the game is pretty goddamn pay2win.

yeah but not when this 0.1% are the only ones who are winning

once in early 10's we had person in blue gear getting rank1 in 3v3 in a single night. it was a bit funny
even more funny that only such a statement made b. do something with arena ladder
it was crowded with buyers and boosters.

it's not direct pay2win from b. of course but it can show how 0.1% of buyers ruin effort of many

[Amorac]

mau is combined number from all blizzard games

Yes, I know the nr given by Activision Blizzard is for 'all' Blizzard games, yet it is being used as it is just for WoW for some reason. But, MAU for WoW according to Activision Blizzard was up, yet because the overall MAU is down, WoW is doing worse or something and MAU is a bad metric but Subs nr's are great.

But to be honest, I don't really see what that has to do with me wondering why MAU is a worse metric then Sub nr's when talking about the MAU for WoW.

Anyway, as a side note, IMHO for players MAU is a far better metric then sub nr's. Why, because a sub does not equal active player, MAU, even the few that are bots, is an 'active' player. I'd rather know how many people play then pay. But nothing beats being able to being able to select what group to join for whatever activity one want, as long as that is a thing the game is doing fine I would say.

For Shareholders, well, I would think they rather know how many people pay every month a fixed amount and how many spend money in the store but seems they just need MAU as well.

[Kralljin]

WoW plateaued around the close of WotLK and then entered the downward arcing motion we see today, with rises and fall-offs trending downward.

Yes, and i pointed out that this wasn't the case.

I am sorry, but please consider your words when you write

Those spikes and dips are pretty much the entire model for WoW's population over time, as well. That some expansions are more popular than others goes without saying, but the trendline still holds pretty firm.

At very least, give me an indicator that you are referring to a specific timeframe.

Your confusion isn't due to a lack of differentiation or communication on my part.

I'm fairly certain that when someone states that Classic is clear example of nostalgia pandering, without even acknowledging that there is an underlying to this type of game that people enjoy and appreciate, then i don't feel bad to call it a lack of differentiation.

But since you acknowledged now that there is more to Classic / TBC than nostalgia, i can live with that.

eh i'm with the other guy. having a middle man doesn't matter it's still pay2win. pretense or no.

I'm not the one who's pretending, i think Retail is pretty much pay to win as you can buy the WoW token and use that gold to pay a booster.

A lot of people however do use the middle man as excuse to dismiss that.

Heck, i think that Classic / TBC is also pay to win because you can trade Retail gold for Classic / TBC gold without breaking the ToS.
The only thing that is holding it back from becoming more extreme is the extremely poor conversion rate.

however pay to win is not a black/white thing, it's a degree thing.

I think it is a black and white thing, the ability to buy items that can give you a tangible advantage over other players makes a game pay to win.
The amount of people that engage in is irrelevant to me as long as it the practice does not break any ToS.

By your definition, a game where you can buy an item on the shop that one shots everyone is not pay to win because only a fraction buys it - which i could ensure by charging an insane price like 10k.
That way, only a fraction will surely buy it.