It's startling how fast game activity is falling

[Muis]

I cba reading through all the posts, made it halfway before work intervened.. But I got a great idea.

What if everyone that's on this forum, still playing, would just install and run XFire... Wouldn't that make the OP look silly in 3 months when activity doubles/triples because we all start using it now.

Willing to bet he's gonna search through other programs for WoW data that's irrelevant for the majority of active players.

Only people using these numbers are the ones that stopped playing and need a reason. The ones that still play don't care. My friends still play, my guild is alive and I have fun. For me that means win/win.

[Synstir]

Read BeastmasterGuardians comment.

Done that, just now.... and I don't fully agree with him. While generally speaking he is right.. there are also other reasons :-)
I am working 20 years in the same field now.... still enjoying my work very much.
I am a very loyal kind of guy.... I changed company just once.... after working 9 years there there came a change of policy. I couldn't find myself agreeing with it and only because of this change I left the company. Not because I got bored working there for 9 years with the same people in the same environment.. no not at all. I left because of 1 policy change.

So I am not agreeing with you or BeastmasterGuardian.

[Gilian]

First I need to know if you will accept MY point of view on MY gaming experience.

[Up untill now I am enjoying talking to you. It shows how 2 different people can do the same thing, play the same game with completely different point of views]

I accept your view. I just don't agree with your reason. I gave arguments that you don't accept and just say "you are something".
There were no major game changing decisions this expansion. It was all tweaking and they are still going in the same direction they were going. Unlike the difference between TBC (pretty hardcore) and WotLK (extremely casual and easy). That they started Cataclysm by tweaking a little too much and end it by going more back to WotLK difficulty dungeons are not major changes that affect the direction this game is going. It was very clear which direction they were going. You could predict things would get easier during Cataclysm just like I will predict now that reputation grinds will go away almost completely during MoP (they already started).

[mosely]

The real reason most people quit over time is life and boredom. Either life changes drastically and there is no longer room for such a hobby, or after 8 long years of playing the same old game, you just get bored. Most people hate to admit when they are finally bored with something they love. It usually ends up in divorce, anger, and depression. Much like the "I hate wow" and "I quit threads" of the battlenet forums, most people won't recognize the real reason they are leaving is because they were already bored with the game and are now mad that even more changes have come in and ruined the already boring experience. If more people could realize and just uninstall and walk away, we wouldn't get 90% of the "RAAAAAAAAGE" threads we see every day.

I personally love this game. I've enjoyed it since my first Orc Warrior on Suramar in Nov 2005. Things change, and so do people. Maybe they should understand the game doesn't suck, it's simply evolving in a direction other than what they had hoped. Time to remove the Rose Colored Goggles and find something new to do.

2 for 2 on using the "You're just bored of MMOs" and "Rose-tinted glasses" arguments. Do we even accept those as valid objections these days?

[Deleted]

It funny how defensive some people on this forum can get about the current state of WoW. As far as I can see all the OP posted was some links to data and some analysis of that data, yet people are reacting as if he just made another 'WoW is terrible now' thread.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

I changed company just once.... after working 9 years there there came a change of policy.

You just proved my point. You stayed in the same field "i.e. - MMORPG" but switched companies after a CHANGE you disagreed with (i.e. - changes in expacs makes players want to leave). This is the very thing I was saying.

[Gilian]

Done that, just now.... and I don't fully agree with him. While generally speaking he is right.. there are also other reasons :-)
I am working 20 years in the same field now.... still enjoying my work very much.
I am a very loyal kind of guy.... I changed company just once.... after working 9 years there there came a change of policy. I couldn't find myself agreeing with it and only because of this change I left the company. Not because I got bored working there for 9 years with the same people in the same environment.. no not at all. I left because of 1 policy change.

So I am not agreeing with you or BeastmasterGuardian.

Sure. But there happened a lot of changes during the period you played WoW (TBC till now) and some of them were much more contradicting or game changing than going from mid/end Cataclysm to MoP.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

2 for 2 on using the "You're just bored of MMOs" and "Rose-tinted glasses" arguments. Do we even accept those as valid objections these days?

Every opinion is objective. Unless you sit on the throne of a 3rd world country and everyone agrees with you for fear of losing their head.

[Gangplank]

I just want to ask why do you care if some people don't play anymore? Do you play the game for them or for yourself? If they leave, do you want to leave too?

There's certainly motivation for many players to continue playing WoW because their friends play. And this isn't just a case for WoW. Taking myself for example, as soon as my friends stopped playing D3, I stopped. As soon as my friends took a break from LoL, so did I. For some, it's more enjoyable to NOT play solo (and in many cases, some people find no joy in playing solo -- I personally can't stand D3 solo).

One could also argue that fewer people playing on their realm affects players directly -- fewer guilds to join, resources on the AH become scarce and prices drive up, or a general feeling of the game NOT resembling an mmo (I was "alone" in SW trade district the other day at peak play time). I activated my wow trial over thanksgiving weekend just to give MoP a shot, and when I went to buy glyphs for my DK, there was only one person selling glyphs on the AH, and they were all 700g per glyph. So a lack of players did affect me. I had like 2k gold on my DK (i hadn't played WoW since Cata started), so buying those glyphs were out of the question initially (I ended up leveling inscription on another character just to get the glyphs I wanted).

[BeastmasterGuardian]

It funny how defensive some people on this forum can get about the current state of WoW. As far as I can see all the OP posted was some links to data and some analysis of that data, yet people are reacting as if he just made another 'WoW is terrible now' thread.

Essentially, that's really all this was. "here's some random data from some 'reliable' resources talking about how minimal the activity is on the largest and most popular MMO ever".

[Pann]

I cba reading through all the posts, made it halfway before work intervened.. But I got a great idea.

What if everyone that's on this forum, still playing, would just install and run XFire... Wouldn't that make the OP look silly in 3 months when activity doubles/triples because we all start using it now.

Willing to bet he's gonna search through other programs for WoW data that's irrelevant for the majority of active players.

Only people using these numbers are the ones that stopped playing and need a reason. The ones that still play don't care. My friends still play, my guild is alive and I have fun. For me that means win/win.

...Or you could all go and get second accounts... That'd show the haters!

If you and your guild mates are having so much fun why are you bothered what the Xfire numbers show?

[velde046]

Why do you care why I care? Are you fishing for some motivation that you can use to dismiss the data I'm presenting?

I think he is just wondering what good the data is for anyway? It kinda feels like another result that has pretty numbers but is actually not saying a thing.
It's like saying that over 50% of the world population is sitting down while using a toilet.
Yeah sure:
- say 50% is female
- there are men that sit also
- men also have to take dumps
- it leaves out the fact that a huge percentage does not even have access to a toilet

So number are meaningless without a background. Plus even if you have a background, how is it useful or funny to know? Not saying you shouldn't do your small investigations, but don't be surprised that a lot of people don't care for it or buy it. Most of the people here are playing a game cause they like it and cannot be bothered by that kind of info at all.

[Osmeric]

Peak WoW is over. Its still the most played MMO on the planet,

Is it? Do you have data for MMOs available just inside China?

[AeneasBK]

I play constantly and don't use Xfire nor I use census. There are thousands players doing the same thing as me so the data you got is extremely inaccurate.

Only numbers I'll ever trust are the numbers released by Blizzard. Everything else is irrelevant.

Um I don't really know anything about X-fire other than whats been detailed in this thread, but hasn't it already been pointed out that its not surveying how many other X-fire users are online its measuring how many *players* are online at the same time as the person(s) with X-fire... or along those lines, maybe they have to type a command first. But essentially there are enough Xfire users to start getting decent samples of how many people are online at given times.

YES its only correlating data its not a DEFINATE result... but it strikes me that a website that has 2k people playing WoW, which checks how many other player are online every time one of those 2000 players is online, will be accurate enough to *start* getting a picture.

This thread isn't about discussing the validity of the data (although that seems to be the main focus or replies) its trying to get a commentary on how this - same data source accurately 'predicted' the fall of subs based on player activity in the run up to said sub losses - is now predicting a far mroe severe decline.

OT: Well people are done with dailies, or MoP wasn't what they had hoped, don't think anyone here is trying to claim WoW is gonna be having a growth spurt any time soon. We'll lose subs, maybe as much as a million, maybe more.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

If you and your guild mates are having so much fun why are you bothered what the Xfire numbers show?

Considering the data is about as useful as wooden teeth in the year 3000, it is unlikely that any of us are actually "bothered" by it. We're more or less debating its validity in this forum. When you make a statement, especially one so bold and flame worthy, be prepared to defend its ideals against those who might discredit it. Happens all the time in the medical and legal communities. We're not looking to argue, we just want proof that the "facts" are in fact realist and quantifiable.

[Osmeric]

I play constantly and don't use Xfire nor I use census. There are thousands players doing the same thing as me so the data you got is extremely inaccurate.

I never get called for a presidential election poll. Millions of others aren't called either. Therefore polls are inaccurate and worthless, amiright?

[Deleted]

btw is xfire even available in china? i strongly suspect it isn't, and if its the case then we have also debunked the theory according to which there are more gw2 eu/us players than wow players.
blizzard's dying game has like 2x the activity of the next game in that chart.

[Osmeric]

Um I don't really know anything about X-fire other than whats been detailed in this thread, but hasn't it already been pointed out that its not surveying how many other X-fire users are online its measuring how many *players* are online at the same time as the person(s) with X-fire... or along those lines, maybe they have to type a command first.

No, Xfire records what those players who have XFire installed are running. The denial argument is that the average XFire user is so different from the average WoW user that trends among the former say nothing about trends among the latter.

WCR uses the mod that checks on what other people are logged into WoW servers.

---------- Post added 2012-11-29 at 02:35 PM ----------

btw is xfire even available in china?

All these numbers (XFire and WCR) ignore China.

[fizzbob]

I cba reading through all the posts, made it halfway before work intervened.. But I got a great idea.

What if everyone that's on this forum, still playing, would just install and run XFire... Wouldn't that make the OP look silly in 3 months when activity doubles/triples because we all start using it now.

Willing to bet he's gonna search through other programs for WoW data that's irrelevant for the majority of active players.

Only people using these numbers are the ones that stopped playing and need a reason. The ones that still play don't care. My friends still play, my guild is alive and I have fun. For me that means win/win.

seems kind of stupid to believe that people who use xfire are more prone to not having fun/not playing wow than the average

if anything it's the opposite, aren't any bots streaming so no xfire for them, but they're damn sure boosting subs and online a lot

last random bg i did was wsg, of 20 people there were 7 bots and afks. there were 2 rogues farming them exclusively so that's 11 people playing wsg. if they man up, crack down on bots and lose probably 500,000 subs because of it, they'll dip below 8,000,000 subs this expansion easily. lost 2 million in cata from launch, i'd be surprised if they stayed above 7.5 million in MoP

the asians boosted that number to 10,000,000 and they don't stick around long anyway, but i've read nothing but how much they don't like it there. we'll see next quarter

[Skippy88]

I think the more interesting discussion is why? How much of the falling activity levels is normal (No more money, can no longer play, etc.)? How much of is due to people quitting? How much is it due to people still playing but spending the majority of their time on other games? Annual Pass? School? Work? Something else?