It's startling how fast game activity is falling

[BeastmasterGuardian]

the social bonds that make all these possible without the need to queue and play with random people who you have no connection with.

I often wondered the same thing. Why not just merge the realms? You would increase zone population, keep all the nodes in competition, but on the same world, and you would eliminate the animosity of having to deal with people you will otherwise never interact with. At least if everyone were on the same realm, and there was no "my realm's better than yours" stuff, maybe that sense of community would return. You don't feel as bad about getting beat out of herbs or ore when it is someone from your realm, but you're pissed as hell when it says another realm at the end of their name.

[Peacemoon]

In that context, forum anonymity is like a cancer, eating away at forum ghosts own souls.

Forum anonymity has nothing to do with that debate at all. Completely irrelevant point my friend.

[MossMonster]

People care so much for WoW to fail. The thing is post like this are silly. It is nothing but text that in someway pleases the person who posts the idea. Most people who are true gamers play the game for the game not the statistics of subs and players active. The game wont fail for the people who like it no matter what cause to them its a game and enjoyable.

[Leonard McCoy]

For stat-progression? No, LFR and Dailies are required for Stat-progression, and they are not major bottle necks towards progression. The reason OPTIONAL comes up a lot in regards to dailies is not saying "do them or don't do them"... it's about doing some dailies or EVERY SINGLE DAMN DAILY in order to maximize out everything.... and you damn well KNOW that's what they meant by it! >_<



Because the WoW-Zealots will now start complaining that they need to do Dailies, LFR AND CHALLENGE MODES in order to maximize their stats.

Dude... clear your mind and look at the Optional content complaints from the right angle. It's not the casuals complaining that there's too much dailies... it's these Hardcore doinks wanting to maximize every single chance/avenue to obtain every possible stat-loot. They're burning out fast and thus complaining there's too many dailies... then there's us casuals saying "Dude, it's optional content... don't do ALL the dailies... just do some of them" - but the Hardcore can't see it that way. They have it in their insane minds that "If I don't do everything possible to max my stats... then I'm a lazy baddie!"

Now you want to throw a THIRD option of obtaining stat-loot into their burnout grind?! >__<

All the progress-maxers will feel (note the word FEEL... not the same as the word "are"...) like they're FORCED to do Challenge, LFR and Dailies just to maximize their stats.

The reason "Optional" gets bandied about is because there's a torrent of insane players who try to do everything believing they'll be some horrible castaway player if they don't exhaust every avenue of stat-building available every single day.

I don't see why challenge modes would be any more forced tha lfr or dailies though. I mean you would still get better gear from your raid anyway and the raids would still be clearable in 463. I would also argue that it is indeed casuals complaining about this daily nonsense. As a casual player through most of Cata I could still gear up my toon in a reasonable manner without being subject to rng or dailies. It's lots of people who are upset with it. Casuals who can't progress at a decent enough rate and the min maxers who feel forced to do this crap because progression as a whole has been strangled this expansion. Everything is so fucking slow. Even valor capping through dungeons is a pain. GH had a tweet about that recently and they honestly think the 7 a week system was worse than the current one. The current one is really unflexible, doesn't award the bonus and just means that casual players are less likely to cap out each week and less likely to make meaningful progression on their toons. When they are gtting rewarded or progressing they stop playing. They stop subbing.

None of this answers the question why challenge modes can't have the same gear lfr or dailies do. In fact you'd probably have alot more happy players if you said okay heres 476 gear from challenge modes. You just tell them the same thing you've been telling them for the past 2 months, they are optional. Casual guys like me get another avenue to gear and nothing has changed in the game because hey if the whole your not forced to do anything defense is really accurate then your not forced to do anything. They could add it in tmmrw and it wouldn't harm a single person. It wouldn't make challenge modes any more forced than dailies or lfr. Hardcore min maxers or not. Saying challenge modes would be too forced is basically saying lfr and dailies are. Their is very little difference. UNless you accept the principle, that the devs themselves stated not to long ago. When optional content is to rewarding it ceases to become optional. Lfr and dailies are either to rewarding and thus not optional OR challenge modes can have gear just like lfr and dailies and still be optional. Take your pick.

[Orange Joe]

I ran only guild runs - I think the only dungeon that took us longer than 30 minutes after our first run through it was Halls of Light clearing all bosses.

best way to tell someone is lying is when they can't keep their story straight

There was no halls of light in Cata.

[DeadmanWalking]

Forum anonymity has nothing to do with that debate at all. Completely irrelevant point my friend.

Why not? People act like douchebags to others because there are no consequences due to anonimity in both places. In real life you would never tolerate someone coming up to you and telling you that you are a sheep for continueing to follow your hobby because its all designed by an evil corporation to rob you.

[Kissme]

Especially considering the bugged first ZG boss that would one shot players.

My achievement for ZG was 5/1/2011
Patch was released 4/26/2011

Did they hotfix it within that 5 day window?

[Theendgamelv3]

Cata had MORE players playing at the time, more players means more playtime. Less players means less play time. Notice how MoP's play time never beats Cata, that is because of less players. Is there a bigger drop in hours played compared to the amount of the player base between Cata and now? Also, activity tends to be higher at the start of expansions as well and will die down. Basically this argument should be brought up in the middle of the expansion instead at the beginning of one.

[Osmeric]

Cata had MORE players playing at the time, more players means more playtime. Less players means less play time. Notice how MoP's play time never beats Cata, that is because of less players

I don't think it's safe to compare the WCR numbers over such long periods, since there could be a long term drift in the usage of the mod.

[mvaliz]

I don't see why challenge modes would be any more forced tha lfr or dailies though.

Go back and actually read what I wrote... I can't explain it ANY simpler. I'm not going to bother replying as all I end up doing is repeating the same thing in different contexts trying to explain why it's a problem... clearly you're not even bothering to read anything I wrote that explains your very points.

---------- Post added 2012-11-30 at 06:49 PM ----------

My achievement for ZG was 5/1/2011
Patch was released 4/26/2011

Did they hotfix it within that 5 day window?

Major bugs like that? More than most likely... yeah.

[Leonard McCoy]

Go back and actually read what I wrote... I can't explain it ANY simpler. I'm not going to bother replying as all I end up doing is repeating the same thing in different contexts trying to explain why it's a problem... clearly you're not even bothering to read anything I wrote that explains your very points.

---------- Post added 2012-11-30 at 06:49 PM ----------



Major bugs like that? More than most likely... yeah.

I read what you wrote. It doesn't prove that one activity is more forced or less forced than the other. Either challenge modes with gear would be "forced" and hence dailies and lfr are also "forced" OR none of it is forced and challenge modes really ought to have more substantial rewards behind them and can have those rewards without any detriment to the game or community.

[Kissme]

best way to tell someone is lying is when they can't keep their story straight

There was no halls of light in Cata.

Stupid egyptian dungeon - 4 gods, 3 other bosses. I haven't played the game since March, sue me for forgetting a dungeon that I bothered running (let me check my armory) twice. According to my armory stats I killed Daakara in ZA almost as many times as all the heroic 5 man bosses from the release dungeons combined (on my main).

Actually, looking on my main I cleared all those heroic dungeons a maximum of twice according to the stats. That geared me enough combined with rep and crafted gear to go BWD and BoT.

Bastion of Twilight cleared 1/19/2011, BWD 2/13/2011, 4 Winds 2/2/2011

Cataclysm Released 12/7/2010
All but Tides done for heroic 5 man release dungeons by 12/18/2010
Tides done 2/12/2011 - somehow I missed this one during release.

So I cleared all 5 man heroics (effectively) within 2 weeks of release as a casual player.

Love how people call me a liar because I don't care enough about cataclysm dungeons to remember their names 2 years after I did them.

[Orange Joe]

Snip

So you can remember exactly how long it took but not the name of it? not to mention you only ran it twice but you can remember how long it took and not the name.....


Yup I call bullshit.

[mvaliz]

Love how people call me a liar because I don't care enough about cataclysm dungeons to remember their names 2 years after I did them.

No... they call you a liar because you get a TON more things wrong than one dungeon name.

I'm still laughing at the 30 minute dungeons claim on Cata launch... That's just downright pathetic right there...

[Banzhe]

More excuses.

The game is dying due to apathy and staleness and some brain dead decisions from Blizzard (e.g., Warlocks being so OP it's just watch players die as healers don't have efficient counters scenerios, all so it can work in arena, hells bells anywhere else).

How is the game dying with more subscribers then it had in the last expansion?- how is the game dying when it's by far still the most popular and most played mmo to date?

Doomsayers n' kids trying to state your opinions as fact, grow up or go back to school.., your lacking basic understanding of elementary subjects..!

[Theendgamelv3]

I don't think it's safe to compare the WCR numbers over such long periods, since there could be a long term drift in the usage of the mod.

Why not, as I pointed out, it is really not a good to point out the argument you made cause you dealing with a lesser amount of players than the last sample which would skew anything you said. In order to prove your argument, you have to show that there is a sharper % drop in hours played in MoP compared to Cata with the amount of players in each expansion and not the hours themselves as hours are dependent on players. Also not only that, in the middle of a expansion, you have sub numbers from Blizzard, more people talking about how they and others quit or joined in forums, etc. Basically you have a better picture IMO in the middle of a expansion cause there would be more evidence.

[Zenko]

So you can remember exactly how long it took but not the name of it? not to mention you only ran it twice but you can remember how long it took and not the name.....


Yup I call bullshit.

Not sure if trolling, or genuinely paranoid of the above poster.

What benefit does that poster have in lying? Maybe they are exaggerating, by why come here and lie about something thats off topic.

Lets assume they are exaggerating and that their runs actually took 45min. Would that satisfy you?

[Osmeric]

How is the game dying with more subscribers then it had in the last expansion?

While I will not claim the game is dying (or claim the opposite), I will point out that the last expansion, two months in, had more subscribers than this expansion started with.

[Zoldor]

Ohhh nooooos my game of 10 million people might only have 7 million by the end of the expansion ohhh noooosss its all it over!!!!!!!!

Run to the hills! Too bad its not affecting my guild, our usual quitter has quit again like he does each expansion and he'll be back in 60 days as per normal. I've seen a small decline on my server but no worse than Cata brought.

[Orange Joe]

Not sure if trolling, or genuinely paranoid of the above poster.

What benefit does that poster have in lying? Maybe they are exaggerating, by why come here and lie about something thats off topic.

Lets assume they are exaggerating and that their runs actually took 45min. Would that satisfy you?

I wouldn't believe 45 minutes either.


As to why would he lie? Simple fact he is trying to make blizzard look bad? This way he can present his case and make it look better.