How healthy is World of Warcraft's future?

[MoanaLisa]

Removing lore, jokes, flirts, artwork has basically set the playerbase on fire.

I think there needs to be at least a disclaimer that there are a few dozen site accounts here that are on fire, many of them not playing the game any longer so not either engaged with the game or part of Blizzard's revenue stream to begin with. I've seen a lot of the same thing on reddit: players who quit long ago or are making the typical performative "I Quit" posts there that inevitably seem to be followed a few weeks later with some game complaint that clearly demonstrates they didn't quite for long if at all.

The comments about a huge exit from the game over these emotes, pictures and flirts doesn't really seem to be based in reality. In fact, we have no idea if there is a larger exit than usual. There might be! There might not! We don't know because Blizzard doesn't hand that out and external measures are all suspect for one reason or another.

The 'playerbase' is a very large entity and it's likely wrong to make generic assumptions about all of them. I think it's great that people are speaking up with their own thoughts. I think it's pointless and a waste of time to assume that everyone else is 'basically' with them.

[Echocho]

Agreed, BellularGaming started complaining about this esport problem years ago, i refused to believe that or listen, and regrettable, either did Blizz, and here we are.

Yeah when I think back I realize that the game was a lot more relaxed and enjoyable before they added mythic raids and dungeons.

I think that's one of the reasons refugees are sticking with FFXIV. They kinda have their version of mythic raiding but it's only for weapon transmog so it really doesn't affect anyone. It's completely optional since there's no player power.
And of course you have the badge system where every single player have access to the best gear in the game (allbeit slower than raiders) simply from running daily heroics and LFR equivalent content. Just put in the time and you'll get your reward.

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Great raids are highly likely, in fact it's one of the few things in the game that are (almost) always spot on.

Great story? It was never 'great' to begin with, and with Danuser calling the shots, it is certainly NOT going to improve anytime soon.

Crap systems removed? Not going to happen with Ion at the helm. He seems to absolutely love that kind of BS, so... No.

We can conclude thus that the chances of 10.0 being a home run are equal or lower than 33.33...%

I think that this is important to have in mind. The game won't change in any big way if staff isn't replaced or restructured.

[CaptainV]

Honestly as I said earlier there is very little optimism for the future of WoW right now, the damage is done, and somehow they decided rather than fix the problems that were wrong with the core of the company, they decided to take it out on their products and make the player base that generally had no issue with 9/10ths of these things genuniley feel alienated/unwanted.

This is basically the death of the author, and yes, it will hurt blizzard, let me be realistic in saying this, if you think the next expansion after Shadowlands is going to be WoW's great comeback, think again.

Its over, the glory days are long gone and maybe, if your optimistic you can assume that the next expansion could launch with a decent 5 million players starting, but people are too jaded now, most are moved onto XIV, New World, ESO, SWTOR, GW2 and soon Lost Ark.

Blizzard did indeed kill their own game, and the damage is genuinley terminal, yes, wow is actually dying, for real this time.

Heres what I will say about that?

Is it dying quickly?

Thats the real question.

The answer is no, WoW will not die a swift and sudden death, your not gonna suddenly see the sub numbers drop from 10 million to 10'000 over night, but what is likley to happen here is that a combination of various things from controvesy, to bad design choices, to alienating old players is going to lead to players just not returning next expansion, or the one after that.

I already had that momement during Shadowlands free weekend, I didnt even play the game, I owned it and I realized I didnt really care.

I know alot of my friends who moved onto XIV in Shadowbringers life cycle, for my part, I played XIV during late Stormblood and I was enthralled by it, and honestly? Im happy there.

I think thats the thing the WoW community doesnt want to hear, that yes, other MMO's make players happy besides WoW.

Your not "Obligated" to some die hard loyalty to this game, and if you truly enjoy it, great, some will come and go, many will likley be even more likley to come and go than usual due to the changes made and generally the direction taken.

But yes, wow is dying, its a slow, decaying death but it isnt a sudden drop that will lead to the end of the game tommorow.

Its just clear now, that no king rules forever.

[thunderdragon2]

Blizz has lost their way.

I believe that they are so used to the idea that so many loved the game that they thought the players would be happy with whatever they gave to them. Selling lots of tokens to the esports crowd while the dedicated keep the lights on seems like a good formula for success. The playerbase is always going through churn, so they ignored people leaving until they realized it was an exodus.

If 10.0 is a great expansion that fixes a lot of the things that drove players away then they could get another shot at their glory days. I doubt that will happen as the new team still has all the financial constraints and goals as before.

My sub will be up in a while and I'm starting to look forward to when it's done.

it doesn't matter how good 10.0 is as long as the devs haven't changed i still play mainly due to family and friends and what i said in the 1st part is the sentance is the major issue here, the devs don't seem to have any drive to make the game good or creativity left.

outside of the few remaining mounts i have left in korthia my guild raids and trying trying to finish my druids gearing is all i have left to do in the game as i dislike pvp and ive got the score i want (2000) and have no drive to go higher i just do 1 for vault and that's it dom slots the lego bow and cloak form sylvanas is killed my need to do more then 1.

the last bosses loot table should NEVER be all bis items for ONLY one class

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Yeah when I think back I realize that the game was a lot more relaxed and enjoyable before they added mythic raids and dungeons.

I think that's one of the reasons refugees are sticking with FFXIV. They kinda have their version of mythic raiding but it's only for weapon transmog so it really doesn't affect anyone. It's completely optional since there's no player power.
And of course you have the badge system where every single player have access to the best gear in the game (allbeit slower than raiders) simply from running daily heroics and LFR equivalent content. Just put in the time and you'll get your reward.

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I think that this is important to have in mind. The game won't change in any big way if staff isn't replaced or restructured.

i agree i think mythic+ was THE worst addition to the game as it bread toxicity and then came the esports from it that just made the game worse as it just quickly became meta spec or gtfo.

[Cosmic Janitor]

To be really fair, WoW is still the MMO with the biggest dev team and biggest budget on the planet, other MMO's even FFXIV/New World got a much smaller budget and smaller teams!

Do we really know if that is still the case? Undoubtedly it was so in the past, but right now..? All we know is they are hiring anyone and their grandmother, but supposedly not many responeded. Rumors had it they lost alot of people during covid to Riot, simply because they pay way better than Blizzard. They took over 7 months to squeeze out a patch that barely has any new art in it, even with working from home that seems slow. We haven't even heard a squeek about 9.2., at this point I have to wonder how many people still work full force on modern WoW and what their overall budget is for the game.

[SoundOfGuns]

To be really fair, WoW is still the MMO with the biggest dev team and biggest budget on the planet, other MMO's even FFXIV/New World got a much smaller budget and smaller teams!

Maybe, yes, but... compare the reception of these other two with WoWs. And i think we can agree that we are past the point where anyone can pretend its just nay-sayers and complainers. WoW is in deep shit designwise because of the teams own incompetence, arrogance and partial misbehavior. No budget can fix that.

[Selah]

They're in really bad shape. I cannot think of a single WoW streamer or YT that isn't deep into either FFXIV or other MMOs. Worse yet, they keep talking about how terrible WoW is in comparison. While not all justified, there's definitely truth and reason in a good 80% of this by my estimation.

Then you have all the terrible things happening at Blizzard, but then you have Blizzard making knee jerk reactions and changing parts of the game for no real reason other than "dirty joke bad." On top of this, they're doing all this work when SL has had fuck all for content outside of the buggy launches that were 9.0 and 9.1.

Something is seriously wrong at Blizz HQ and they need to get their shit together. Rehashing old content and more cosmetics isn't going to bring me back.

[Yarathir]

I mean, it might chug along for a little a while being able to sustain itself just enough to pay server costs.

[Kralljin]

Do we really know if that is still the case? Undoubtedly it was so in the past, but right now..?

WoW Team dev counted around 200 members a few years ago, considering Blizzard wanted to hire more devs after they laid off "non dev roles", i'd say it should be about the same.

The budget / size of the dev team is certainly there, i however believe that there is too much red tape within the design process, with no clear structure and no coherent vision to guide the development.
Thus you have a overblown team that produces barely anything, with a sizeable portion of that also landing in the bin because the people in charge can't make up their mind.

[pinglong]

New World being a big hit & Endwalker coming next month, it's going to be a scary time for WoW.
Blizzard's current response of censoring content isn't winning anyone back, they need to make some good content for the game & fast.

[Ringthane]

They're in really bad shape. I cannot think of a single WoW streamer or YT that isn't deep into either FFXIV or other MMOs. Worse yet, they keep talking about how terrible WoW is in comparison. While not all justified, there's definitely truth and reason in a good 80% of this by my estimation.

Then you have all the terrible things happening at Blizzard, but then you have Blizzard making knee jerk reactions and changing parts of the game for no real reason other than "dirty joke bad." On top of this, they're doing all this work when SL has had fuck all for content outside of the buggy launches that were 9.0 and 9.1.

Something is seriously wrong at Blizz HQ and they need to get their shit together. Rehashing old content and more cosmetics isn't going to bring me back.

Oh, no, not the streamers! Blizzard will never survive if a bunch of nobodies aren't filming themselves soothing their massive egos while playing some video game!

Or, you could look at people who aren't getting paid to play things and see what they think.

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New World being a big hit & Endwalker coming next month, it's going to be a scary time for WoW.
Blizzard's current response of censoring content isn't winning anyone back, they need to make some good content for the game & fast.

Man, once Rift, Age of Conan, the Warhammer MMO, Star Trek Online, the Star Wars MMO, and Wildstar hit, nobody's going to play WoW. Who's going to want to play that tired old thing when there's all this new stuff on the horizon?

[RoKPaNda]

Simple enough question folks: How healthy is WoW's future?
Things to consider:

• BFA & Shadowlands Reception
  I know both expansions have defenders, but the numbers don't lie. Whether it's gameplay, systems or lore, both expansions have had major issues with a significant amount of the playerbase.
• The Toxic/Abusive Workplace of Activision-Blizzard
  I don't need to go into this. It's beyond awful and utterly unacceptable. We all know it.
• The sanitization/bonfire of content devs no longer find acceptable.
  Removing lore, jokes, flirts, artwork has basically set the playerbase on fire. Once again, this has an impact on engagement.

1) Eh. This is probably the only valid point. A lackluster expansion (BFA) followed up with a bad (imo) expansion is a rough one to overcome but they can do it. They really just have to churn out a good expansion. They already know that millions WILL come back even for a turd like WoD, they just have to create something worth sticking with once you come back to it.

2) Your average WoW player really doesn't give a shit about this or even know that it's going on. Which is unfortunate.

3) Much like point 2 this is mostly a MMO-Champion / Reddit / Whatever thing and doesn't actually impact the average player. Personally I think a lot of people who are acting like they're outraged by this are just looking for something to be outraged about. That's about how this community goes. We're a very very toxic community. Probably one of the most toxic gaming communities there is sadly. COD might be worse, League might be worse. Personally I'd hope they would replace the removed stuff with new stuff that meets the modern standard. Just removing things is shitty, replacing things is okay.

So yeah as much as everything sucks right now, they could recover from it. Will they? Or will they shit the carpet? Who knows?

[Devilyaki]

Well for me it’s been down hill for a while. If you are not end game raiding and spamming m+ what is there?

[pahbi]

As long as world of warcraft makes money it will be around. Therefore I think the question to ask is: Has World of Warcrafts prime time passed?

While WoW will no doubt continue for decades to come, I suspect it will fall to the wayside and join other MMOs like Ultima Online, Everquest, SWToR etc... that continue to make money from players who stick around because they have invested so much time in the MMO and don't want to join another MMO and start over from scratch.

[Aedruid]

Well for me it’s been down hill for a while. If you are not end game raiding and spamming m+ what is there?

This post 100%

[Bznga]

In this day and age, for a game that is B2P+Sub, the content draught is unrivalled. 4 different difficulties for a single raid per content patch is simply shameful. And on top of that, all the time gating as if this is some F2P game with a cosmetic shop. But nevertheless when i can party up with my irl buddy to push some arena or m+ or join a nice community for couple hours of raiding per week, i enjoy it. Unfortunately, either due to game design or maybe due the current breed of players, people i play with always end up unsubbing quite quickly, leaving me solo in an MMOrpg and then i follow suit.

Long story short, when content is new, all is well but communities die like flies around me, making me think its on maintenance mode really.

[Garretdejiko]

"WoW's Future Has Never Looked Better." Only funnier thing than this statement, is the fact that people voted for it.

WoW will most likely survive, but it won't get new players untill it goes F2P. And if they wanted to bring back people they needed to act fast, so people didn't had time to level something else in a different MMO.
9.1.5 was a desperate move, but the sheer panic showed with their Heartstone cross event in order to increase MAU.

[Selah]

Oh, no, not the streamers! Blizzard will never survive if a bunch of nobodies aren't filming themselves soothing their massive egos while playing some video game!

Or, you could look at people who aren't getting paid to play things and see what they think.

LOL! Bruh, hate to break it to you but steamers are part of the playerbase.

But, if you insist on that weak assessment of the health of the game then might I direct you to the top of the page?

[MoanaLisa]

New World being a big hit & Endwalker coming next month, it's going to be a scary time for WoW.

Doubtful in the case of New World. I wish them the best and have been fooling around with it. I don't think an MMO that leans toward PVP is going to be that much of a threat and if I'm being 100% honest the questing is pretty boring so far. A lot of Kill X of these things, check X number of chests, and other gathering things. It's worth remembering that Rift, Star Wars and even poor Wildstar got off to first month starts that had everyone going "OH MAN, WOW IS IN TROUBLE NOW!!!"

I like MMO's so I hope all the new ones do well but as a practical thing I don't see New World really making much of a dent over the long run. Check back in a few months.

What's scarier for Blizzard is no new games for over five years.

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As long as world of warcraft makes money it will be around. Therefore I think the question to ask is: Has World of Warcrafts prime time passed?

Long ago. There were signs of it at the end of Wrath. Many people who passionately cared about the story and lore thought that it was done with the killing of the Lich King. There have been bumps up and down since then but the mistakes made with Cataclysm confirmed that the days of continual growth were done and that the vast majority of people were letting go and moving on. As we have seen there will always be a few stalker types that can't leave it alone and care more about getting some attention than anything about the game itself which most are not playing.

WoW shows every sign of having a very long tail and a pretty profitable one at that. It pays for itself just with expansion purchases and the vast number of those stay for 30-60 days and then move on until the next. Those players likely know nothing whatsoever about what's going on now with the game changes and won't even notice when they come back for the next one since they'll be mostly playing in the new content (and not examining paintings on the walls).

This is some echo chamber here but please believe me when I say that it's a very limited group that cares one way or another or is even aware of any of this.

If I had to bet I would bet that we're in for at least another half dozen years of people forecasting that WoW is dead, dying or will be turning off their servers sometime in the next few months.

[Super Kami Dende]

if removing emotes is overcorrecting then I'm really not sure what you think the issue going on here even is.

It's not just removing Emotes, its changing item/quest/NPC/region names, removing any semblance of "adult" humour, removing any semblance of female sexuality.

It's puritan bullshit and literally anyone that doesn't see that is braindead anyway.