TBC and Woltk did nothing for wow subs

[ArenaDk]

So, are we gonna talk about how with the released numbers, we finally saw that classic tbc and woltk literally had ZERO Impact on sub numbers, while dragonflight currently is above the peak of real tbc and classic ?

Any theories why that could be ? Will cata also fail like tbc and woltk?

[Sentynel]

There are no released numbers.

You people shouldn't take Bellular seriously. He threw random numbers on the graph, said some yada yada and now you treat it like the bible.

[Kralljin]

If i earn a 1000 bucks in a week and then spend it right away, it may look like i technically earned nothing during that week.

The churn caused by Retail might have been equal to the gains TBC / Wotlk did.
Especially for Wotlk i find it unbelievable because i had to login via remote control during the launch weeks in order to avoid insane queues that even started around noon.

[McNeil]

I expect that the transition to TBC and WotLK is mostly experienced by those who flow from Classic, so there weren’t many ‘new’ players that joined. Or considering that it was released around the time at the end of Shadowlands that retail lost so many players that it is mostly retails numbers to blame. There is no real way to know unless Blizzard shares this information. I do doubt that TBC and WotLK were unwanted, they were both fairly populated through its course.

[Varodoc]

I am not surprised by this thread. OP has a hate-boner for Arthas and Wrath.

Without knowing the exact numbers by game version, you can't attribute the "fail" to Wrath Classic as opposed to Retail.

[ArenaDk]

I am not surprised by this thread. OP has a hate-boner for Arthas and Wrath.

Without knowing the exact numbers by game version, you can't attribute the "fail" to Wrath Classic as opposed to Retail.

I dont hate wrath. It was a good expansion until Arthas started to appear during quests and ruined all world building from warcraft 3.

Also there was no fail, just Woltk did not increase the number of players. So all it did was keep some from leaving? Thats still okay

[Varodoc]

I dont hate wrath. It was a good expansion until Arthas started to appear during quests and ruined all world building from warcraft 3.

Also there was no fail, just Woltk did not increase the number of players. So all it did was keep some from leaving? Thats still okay

But you claimed right in your OP that they "failed":

Any theories why that could be ? Will cata also fail like tbc and woltk?

If TBC Classic failed, why would they waste time on Wrath Classic?

If Wrath Classic failed, why would they waste time on Cataclysm Classic?

If all they care about is money, surely they would not continue to support a failed game mode?

[ArenaDk]

But you claimed right in your OP that they "failed":




If TBC Classic failed, why would they waste time on Wrath Classic?

If Wrath Classic failed, why would they waste time on Cataclysm Classic?

If all they care about is money, surely they would not continue to support a failed game mode?

A mmo doesnt need more than a few thousand player to be worth money wise. look at all the other mmo

However year after yearwe hear how classic wow version carry the game..... and now we see they do nothing. Its just juicy

[DarkAmbient]

The current subscriber numbers include those playing Classic, which according to the Blizzard Twitter poll was around 48% in December. So let's be generous and round up the Dragonflight number up to 4 million. That's just over half of vanilla WoW and just over a third of TBC. So, Dragonflight is nowhere near the peak of real TBC and Classic as you claim. In fact it would make Dragonflight the most unpopular expansion that Blizzard ever made at current numbers.

[Sentynel]

I dont hate wrath. It was a good expansion until Arthas started to appear during quests and ruined all world building from warcraft 3

So you liked it for the first 20 quests? Because Arthas started to appear pretty early in the leveling.

[Lolites]

So, are we gonna talk about how with the released numbers, we finally saw that classic tbc and woltk literally had ZERO Impact on sub numbers, while dragonflight currently is above the peak of real tbc and classic ?

Any theories why that could be ? Will cata also fail like tbc and woltk?

well... no... we just dont know enough details
we "know" (assuming the graph is correct) they didnt have big bump like vanila classic, but i would be surprised if they didnt offset some of the SL decline at its end

[erifwodahs]

It probably did, but SL was so bad it didn't show up that much.

[Cazer]

The lack of a huge wrath bump is because the people already playing tbc had no reason to unsub. We're used to seeing expansion bumps that come after a year of no new content. The wrath prepatch came 4 months after sunwell.

[Mendzia]

Classic raiding scene peaked during early WotLK: https://ironforge.pro/population/classic/overall/

[Relapses]

It's actually impossible to know this from the data we saw on the graph. It looks like WotLK Classic's launch may have at least helped bolster a bit of DF's initial numbers but the two released so close that it's pretty hard to say one way or the other.

This is kinda a pointless thread as you're only going to piss off Classic fans and retail fans don't care enough about whatever's happening in Classic to be invested in such a topic. Can't we just be happy that WoW, in general, is doing pretty good right now without having to resort to us vs. them rhetoric?

[VMSmith]

Can't we just be happy that WoW, in general, is doing pretty good right now without having to resort to us vs. them rhetoric?

WoW sub number speculation is a bloodsport There's going to be every possible interpretation of those graphs and many people are going to be nasty toward anyone who thinks differently than themselves.

There's very few of us that just find it interesting and are willing to accept that our interpretations are lacking concrete data.

[Varodoc]

Wrath Classic was actually a success. Literally just look at the graph. There was a rise in subs coinciding with Wrath Classic, leading up to DF's release 2 months later.






So Wrath Classic was actually a success.

As for TBC Classic, it did keep subs afloat for a time. But then the following month we had Korthia + State-filed lawswuit + Sylvanas cinematic fiasco "i WiLl NeVeR sErVe": it was literally the darkest period in this game's history, clearly even worse than WoD.

So it's not really surprising that TBC Classic couldn't keep the same momentum as Classic 2019, Wrath Classic, and SoD.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Its just one game. They all carry each other. Convos like this is just for morons that are actually worried about which one is more or less etc.

[Sicknex]

Wrath Classic was actually a success. Literally just look at the graph. There was a rise in subs coinciding with Wrath Classic, leading up to DF's release 2 months later.






So Wrath Classic was actually a success.

As for TBC Classic, it did keep subs afloat for a time. But then the following month we had Korthia + State-filed lawswuit + Sylvanas cinematic fiasco "i WiLl NeVeR sErVe": it was literally the darkest period in this game's history, clearly even worse than WoD.

So it's not really surprising that TBC Classic couldn't keep the same momentum as Classic 2019, Wrath Classic, and SoD.

Exactly this. Tbc literally was released during the "darkest" time in wow history with the mass exodus and the lawsuit. Retail probably reached it's lowest sub count by far during this period.

[Armourboy]

Looking at the graph what it should tell you is just how bad Shadowlands was, not what Wrath or TBC did. In fact if not for Classic it appears Retail may have been pushing sub 2 million subs during its lowest period. Frankly Classic is probably the only thing that saved WoW from a death spiral because once things drop like that it starts feeding itself to the point there is no coming back.

Classic was the steady presence that allowed them to go in a different direction with Retail to try and steady the ship there. I also suspect this is why they had to start adding all of the boosts and presale stuff to the version of Classic. With Shadowlands doing so poorly they had to make it somewhere.