WoW Stable at 10.2 Million Subscribers

[Larwood]

Why do haters see stable numbers and point at annual pass? Not only would annual pass holders be extremely unlikely to unsubscribe anyway even without the annual pass, but the annual pass isn't even locked in, you just have to call them up and they'll let you cancel. Ridiculous, people will find any reason to hate.

And don't even get me started on why they feel it's so important they convince wow players that wow is shit.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Why do haters see stable numbers and point at annual pass? Not only would annual pass holders be extremely unlikely to unsubscribe anyway even without the annual pass, but the annual pass isn't even locked in, you just have to call them up and they'll let you cancel. Ridiculous, people will find any reason to hate.

And don't even get me started on why they feel it's so important they convince wow players that wow is shit.

Because they recognized their cause is all but lost, and need to save face.

[Caddo]

AP grants a free mount, no expansion, no transfers, and of course D3.
Scroll grants a mount (not in store, so you really can't put a price on it), an instant level 80 (oh jeez batman, level 80!) and a transfer + faster leveling.

I don't see how Blizz is losing money via AP+Scroll for a few reasons: 1) You still have to buy MoP expansion. 2) These 'mounts' in which you speak of, aren't on the store, yet yield no price to others (heck they could have been a quest reward if Blizz wanted them to be, still no money gained there) 3) They may lose some money on transfers, but I wouldn't hold my breath and say it's groundbreaking to even add that in.

[Klasis]

Usually people that bought the pass would have probably stayed around anyways, and the people that really regretted it ended up finding ways around it.

[therayeffect]

A few months ago it was "GW2 will destroy WoW."

A few days ago every new hater thread was "XYZ is why Tera will kill WoW."

Now today it's shifted to "6 days to the end of WoW" and "May 15, 12:01 AM. WoW shut down for good."


Once again they can't chose this year's killer because this year's crop of MMOs (and Diablo 3 for some reason) just aren't good enough.


As I said earlier, nothing will kill WoW except Blizzard. But an MMO that can beat (have more subscribers at one moment than WoW at that same moment) WoW will have to revolutionize the industry.

GW2 won't be a WoW killer, in fact it'll probably help WoW. They're very different games. Due to GW2's "casual" status, it can actually be played at the same time as WoW by even the most hardcore WoW players. Thus it'll help reduce burnout on WoW lol. I hope GW2 will be very popular to help push innovation but it won't kill WoW. D3 can't destroy WoW because it's part of Blizzard. That's makes no sense lol.

Like I said, someday Tera COULD be a serious competitor but they'd have to commit to updates and to polishing it. From what I've seen (I havent played it yet, plan to) it's basically Vanilla w/ a new combat system and really shiny graphics. It looks very fun, but it's a little baby MMO and WoW is a giant. It needs 6months and commitment from Tera's developers before it can even be seriously considered as competition. Again, I'll still say that nothing will truly kill WoW except WoW itself. I would say that Cata was a pretty good attempt though. It started out great but finished terrible.

[Awe]

Hmm. Well, as much as I am one of those people trapped by the annual pass still I must admit I am surprised by those figures. I witnessed lots of my friends quitting in Q1-2012 and the game at the moment feels stale as never before (I am around since vanilla beta). So the fact that they managed to not loose large amount of subs during those three months looks impressive. I was predicting 500k loss or so.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

GW2 won't be a WoW killer, in fact it'll probably help WoW. They're very different games. Due to GW2's "casual" status, it can actually be played at the same time as WoW by even the most hardcore WoW players. Thus it'll help reduce burnout on WoW lol. I hope GW2 will be very popular to help push innovation but it won't kill WoW. D3 can't destroy WoW because it's part of Blizzard. That's makes no sense lol.

Like I said, someday Tera COULD be a serious competitor but they'd have to commit to updates and to polishing it. From what I've seen (I havent played it yet, plan to) it's basically Vanilla w/ a new combat system and really shiny graphics. It looks very fun, but it's a little baby MMO and WoW is a giant. It needs 6months and commitment from Tera's developers before it can even be seriously considered as competition. Again, I'll still say that nothing will truly kill WoW except WoW itself. I would say that Cata was a pretty good attempt though. It started out great but finished terrible.

I would actually say Cata was an inverse-bell curve. Started good, Firelands was utter bull, and then ended great.

[Szemere]

I would actually say Cata was an inverse-bell curve. Started good, Firelands was utter bull, and then ended great.

Started good, became "meh", and turned into "okay, I guess" PvE wise.

Lore-wise, one big flat line in the bottom of a canyon for me, nothing interesting happened, even tho they tried (too hard (thrall))

PvP wise, I have no clue

[isendims]

I would actually say Cata was an inverse-bell curve. Started good, Firelands was utter bull, and then ended great.

If i had a graph showing how good it was from start to finish it would like a skiing trip, went up on the skii lift, then down a green circle, then down a double diamond.

[Emophia]

Nope. Or maybe, do you think Farmville is an interesting game? Would you depict Wii Sports as a great game? Hey, many people play it! Do you want gaming to go that way? Really? HEll, do you even consider this gaming?

I haven't played farmville but I have plenty of friends that like it and more power to them.

I have had tons of fun playing Wii Sports with my friends and yes I would say it's a great game because it provided us with hours of enjoyment and it was free. The more games that concentrate mainly on fun the better.

Man some people take video games way to seriously, lighten up and have some fun, or if you're not having fun play something that is. I don't understand why anyone would possibly play a game they don't have fun with. I mean they're called video GAMEs for a a reason you know.

And are you playing a game? Then yes it's gaming obviously, since gaming is the act of playing a video game.

[Awe]

I would actually say Cata was an inverse-bell curve. Started good, Firelands was utter bull, and then ended great.

Huh. For me Deathwing raid is the worst tier since ToC. Got boring after 1 month. People were pissed at Icecrown but it lasted for an entire year so no wonder it got stale. IMO Firelands was a better raiding zone from what we have now. Unless you are refering to LFR addition as the "great" factor.

[Thatwsntmilk]

It would be interesting to see the numbers corrected by removing people that went from no account straight to AP (I know a couple) and removing people that got resurrected but most importantly removing people that used the resurrection on their alt accounts (e.g. resurrect inactive accounts to upgrade them to cata).
It would also be interesting how many accounts have been created (and later on banned) to do the dupe gem thing.

[Mezmaron]

Huh. For me Deathwing raid is the worst tier since ToC. Got boring after 1 month. People were pissed at Icecrown but it lasted for an entire year so no wonder it got stale. IMO firelands was a better raiding zone from what we have now. Unless you are refering LFR addition as the "great" factor.

Agreed. I thought Firelands was by far the best raid in Cata. Deathwing himself had to be the most anticlimatic and disappointing boss except maybe Anub'arak.

[therayeffect]

I would actually say Cata was an inverse-bell curve. Started good, Firelands was utter bull, and then ended great.

Lore-wise overall Cata was pretty much the worst Xpac lol. Bunch of lore lover complaints over every forum related to gaming, so that's pretty universal there.

PVE wise the start had 13 (14 if you count BH) bosses and though the story was meh, some of the fights were really challenging and a blast to do. Firelands at the time wasn't too bad but in hindsight it was made so much worse. Even though I like challenging fights Rag was WAY overtuned for not being an end of Xpac boss and the reason seemed only because of the lack on content for the tier. On top of that they reused models and even reused the same exact fight mechanics on a fight or 2. The real problem to me though was the last tier. Completely reused models, super easymode, way too many annoying cutscenes (which contributed to a very pathetic story), Madness is easier than Spine even post 15% tendon nerf, they nerfed the raid way too soon, the lack of some heroic pieces makes it feel rushed and unfinished and they didn't bother to even give hardcore raiders who didn't want to see it nerfed ANY incentive whatsoever for not using the buff or for having cleared it in the first place even though they do that kind of stuff for PVP (give specific 'chieves for being really good for that season, etc). DS was just a complete failure to me. LFR is also a joke but it's not really designed for me. I'd like to see it give blues only to sort of give a pseudo value to epics but meh. It's terrible but it's designed to be terrible. First time really that I've seen where they released two lackluster raids back2back. The biggest complaint was the complete lack of content. I paid probably 50bucks for 8 easy mode bosses and 3 super easy mode heroics. It was very disappointing.

PVP wise I would say the game overall was as balanced as it'll probably ever get. Aside from a few classes hating life when multiple melee was on them, it was pretty good.

Just my 2 cents.

[Big Law]

I'm probably a very small minority but...

I no longer play WoW.
My account is active.
I didn't buy the annual pass.
I plan on buying Diablo 3 on the 15th.

[tiporispit]

Actually, 10.2 million is a loss, if you consider all the accounts that took advantage of the free 80. Let's see the number next quarter, when they didn't pull a gimmick, and I'll be convinced.

[Felaful]

Just because people are becoming less interested in the game and moving onto other games doesn't make them haters. But the whole "WoW being immortal and never losing its spot as top" does get irritating. I'm happy to see them actually stepping up, but they still need to be cautious with other games that are coming up on releases.

As far as ToR, they dug their own hole, putting so much money into something and getting almost nothing back.

Still curious to see how GW2 is gonna fare since they already got over 6 million people in their first weekend beta.

[Moraven]

More smart business moves than a gimmick. They trying to keep numbers high since the biggest competition to WoW will be D3.

TOR tried real hard to keep people and lost a big percentage.

[Deleted]

Quality is completely based on perspective.

I could say World of Warcraft is the highest quality game in the world, and I would be right.

Another could say World of Warcraft has the worst quality of any game, and they would be right.

But only to themselves, not to other people.

To me World of Warcraft has a vast amount of game play, I have invested over 200 days over a few years and I haven't even come close to doing all I could do in the game. Other people could do all they would ever want to do in the game in just a month and either be happy with it or think of it as sucky. All perspective based.

I could read all the replies to the thread - but this post had me stop - because it is forcing me to post. To put it in a very blunt way - You are wrong. Philosophy of Perspective does not apply when it comes to the quality check of a game - Quality is defined by what other things there are out there on the market and what is produced to be the "max" of "quality" - What you talk about - Is sensation - enjoyment of game - That is not Quality, sir.

I could have a Movie produced which costs me 200 billion dollars - If this 200 billion dollar sum went to constructing a giant statue of carrots and potatoes - And only the necessity of making it put to the standard of "movie" - The quality will be defined by what standard it has faced as a production - in comparing to what COULD be produced by those 200 billion dollars - And in fact - what it has surmounted to - Not that 200 million people would say that it's not even a movie - Because sensation is NOT co-related, even in the first, second nor third step - In ANY manner - with Quality. (In this specific instance of a situation - DO NOT quoete me on these words out of context - as these are only meant to be in context of the relevant subject at hand)

To clarify - Do not abuse philosophical thinking, thinking that you can twist semantics into something that is only vaguely resembling a logical scenario - When it's not even close to acceptable to be called a logical scenario.

[Porimlys]

I have pretty much lost hope in the human race today, not sure how anyone can still be enjoying 4.3 still.

People find different things fun.