It's startling how fast game activity is falling

[Kevyne-Shandris]

It has proved compelling enough to put it in the number one spot and keep it there for years.

WoW has always been based around gear.

At most 20% raids.

Do you understand by Blizzard's own statistics 20% of the population also solos the game?

Put things in perspective, raiding was never THE reason to play a MMORPG.

[unholytestament]

At most 20% raids.

Do you understand by Blizzard's own statistics 20% of the population also solos the game?

Put things in perspective, raiding was never THE reason to play a MMORPG.

I must have missed the part where only raids used and awarded gear.

[MoanaLisa]

Annoys me how people say this so frequently when statistics are posted. Do you guys realise how surveys are generally conducted and typical sample sizes? 2,800 people is not a small sample, it is a huge sample that would be the envy of most survey organisers. If you believe 1 in 3333 of the total audience is too small a sample to conclude anything you must believe that 21 million is a small sample size to conclude anything about the human population? Or rather "far too small".

There's a very large difference between the sort of sample you'll get with Xfire/WRC and a scientifically designed poll such as you read about during election years. How large a difference might be worth discussing if that could be determined. It can't though since anything resembling the latter doesn't exist that we know of for World of Warcraft. If Blizzard has done a scientifically designed market survey, they haven't talked about it or provided any results.

[ringpriest]

So what are these game breaking, contradicting game decisions they took? Please enlighten me.

One example is silhouette theory. Back in the classic days, Blizzard devs would regularly point out that the reason we would never see a bi-factional race was because a core idea of the game was that you should recognize the opposite faction on sight almost instinctively. Here's a piece from WoW Insider on the idea: http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/17/tr...tte-theory-an/

Similar fundamental changes in game design have occurred with pve to pvp realm transfers, paid faction changes, and endgame access. These may not be "game-breaking" in the sense that they nosedive the revenue, but they represent very large, basically 180 degree shifts in the underlying structure of the game. A game where a tiny fraction of the players ever see (much less defeat) endgame content is fundamentally different from one where the philosophy is for as many people as possible to experience the endgame content. I'm not saying which model is better (although obviously I have my own opinion, as do most of us ) but it's unquestionable that they are polar opposites in terms of game design.

[Anjerith]

Why do people keep showing Xfire statistics like anyone actually uses Xfire?

[isadorr]

At most 20% raids.

Do you understand by Blizzard's own statistics 20% of the population also solos the game?

Put things in perspective, raiding was never THE reason to play a MMORPG.

How ironic that the pvp you keep mentioning is the biggest mistake blizzard has ever made. Do a search and it was GC and another dev in a interview said that pvp/arena are the biggest mistakes blizzard has ever made. I guess that would explain why they arent nerfing things for you in pvp, this is a pve game more than it is a pvp game and if you hear GC and devs mention that it is the biggest mistakes they ever made maybe you should wish for other things lol.

[Voolawl]

The problem comes when bad players expect to clear hardmode content as quickly as average or upper echelon players.

Accept your limitations.

I just wanted to quote this and use it in my signature, because it's completely true.

Also sup getting out of my AP early because this game has nothing worthwhile to offer me anymore.

[Peso]

Yes. As predicted, we have reached the point in this expansion where Cataclysm was a brilliant, wonderfully designed expansion. Just like Cata sucked and Wrath was perfect and Wrath sucked and TBC was perfect.

I. TBC was perfect (nobody complained because it satisfied everyone).
II. WOTLK did infact start sucking after Ulduar (patch 3.2 with TOC).
III. CATACLYSM was the worst expansion by far (and still is next to MOP).

And to add to that; Vanilla was really good as shown by the success of the game at the launch.

[BenBos]

Fact

1. The GAP between WoW and GW2 and Sw Tor and Eve On Xfire ... Grows daily since a few weeks...

2. That means while Gw2 had at launch even the same playing time as WoW had on those Xfire samples it NOW shows WoW has double the playing nunmbers in that western tool ...

3. On Warcraft Realms there is very little sampling, which makes some odd samples ... BUT WoW now shows the same number as WoW in Dec 2011, which means over 10.2 million subs declared back then ...

The rest is pure activity on a new launched expansion and lesser play after 8 weeks...

Odd that these facts are nowhere mentioned by the OP.


WHY ?...

[Superchief]

The proof has been out for some time that Blizzard hates PvP in their game (at least the new devs who are in charge hate pvp, not the original devs).

Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or8q02BQFLY

[igame]

Haha...I do not play any more so I donno what my server is like but it would be hilarious if the subs fall in next report.
However, the people calling the data false also called the same data false in cata, every single quarter..even while wow was bleeding subs all over the place.
Que cata part 2!

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I. TBC was perfect (nobody complained because it satisfied everyone).

Actually a lot of people were complaining about TBC, paladins especially had every reason to want to spit on TBC. Crystalforge gear is but one horror, being forced to only be a healbot until the end of the expansion is yet another horror.

No, it wasn't a peachy expansion.

WoTLK I l-o-v-e, and still hearthed to Dalaran to make sure I remember Northrend.

[Deleted]

My point is more subtle in that due to the nature of the sampling mechanisms (especially WRC) the nature of the sample can and will change over time. That makes comparing one set of data (first two months of MoP) to another a much more difficult proposition. I'm not saying that you can't use Xfire/WRC to determine broad overall trends. I think you can. I'm much more skeptical of using either to compare results spaced over a very long time frame of 18+ months and then draw conclusions from that.

Some points. People use WRC and - to a lesser extent - xfire not because they think either are perfect, but because we have nothing better available. And when WRC data was used in the beginning of Cata, we heard the same stuff about them not being statistically relevant. In hindsight the prognose validity of WRC data was excellent, not only going from sample activity to overall activity but going from sample activity to overall subscriptions. I think it makes much more sense to trust a source that has shown to be reliable once, even if we can't be sure it is reliable now.


Speculation part incoming. With Blizzard's reputation after Cata and Diablo III certainly worse than two years ago, more directly competing games on the market (Diablo 3, GW 2 and SWTOR to just name three not around in early 2011) and the economic situation at least in Europe more difficult than back then, it might even be argued that inactivity is more likely to lead to subscription losses now than it did in early Cata.

[Deleted]

The problem with the expansion, I think, was not that there was nothing to do, but that there was not enough worth doing.
The distinction is crucial. It's the difference between boredom and something closer to ennui. Blizzard has added a lot to do, but has also tweaked the cost (in time) and fun of the activities, so that they don't feel worth doing.

Thank you sir, both for this quote and the numbers you collected.
I don't think MoP will fail as hard as Cata because there's at least something to do (even if the content is so mind numbing that it makes me want to throw), but I'm pretty sure sub numbers will fall back under 10 millions in a couple of months.

[igame]

I. TBC was perfect (nobody complained because it satisfied everyone).
II. WOTLK did infact start sucking after Ulduar (patch 3.2 with TOC).
III. CATACLYSM was the worst expansion by far (and still is next to MOP).

And to add to that; Vanilla was really good as shown by the success of the game at the launch.

Actually ICC was good enough that it did not cause a sub bleed despite having to support wow for 12 months. More-so a lot more people went back to do ulduar HMs etc when they got done with ICC. Wotlk just had a lot to do that was good and fun, it catered to everyone. TBC was great although sunwell was stupidly hard. Did not do vanilla.

Problem here is blizz had a winning formula in ICC but the keep changing things, so much has changed so fast that it's just a shadow of it's former self now, too much change and too soon, rarely works out.

[Farora]

The heavy dailies focus is the cause of the decline I'm sure. It's just not fun.

[skitz0129]

It's startling how stupid this thread is.

Infracted: Please post constructively - ML

[igame]

I am surprised that you care this much Osmeric. Have you ever played a dying game? Like Dark Age of Camelot or City of Heroes? I don't think you know what dying is, and even in those particular situations, a person could log on and still find a group to do stuff, like task forces in City of Heroes were similar to dungeons/raids, and they could still be thrown together with the measly 150 people logged in across the whole server. It really doesn't matter if the population dwindles. And if WoW dies, it dies. It shouldn't bother you, its just a game. There will be other popular games that you can participate in if that's what really matters to you: Following Trends.

Arrowhead

Firstly, the OP never said dying so perhaps a few lessons in english would help you.
Secondly, it makes you look moronic when you sign off forum posts with your name, school would also teach you this.

[spandex]

Well after a late start, I have already canceled my subscription to the game and am playing much less (even though work is slow right now and I have nothing else to do) with my final days. For me it was how competitive arenas have been treated. Pvp has seen a complete 180 in the design. During cataclysm, you would spend the beginning of each season getting geared up, then the rest of the season was spent competing for position on the ladder. This helped to smooth over problems such as class balance, because one could level up a new toon and gear it up as late as halfway through the season in time to compete. With the new gear grind, it is no longer possible to be competitive if you arrive to a season late for quite a length of time (having so much pvp power on weapons makes this even worse).

No other game has even come close to giving me the sense of depth and teamwork that arena has, and to see it finally left out to rot is a real shame.

[skitz0129]

I. TBC was perfect (nobody complained because it satisfied everyone).
II. WOTLK did infact start sucking after Ulduar (patch 3.2 with TOC).
III. CATACLYSM was the worst expansion by far (and still is next to MOP).

And to add to that; Vanilla was really good as shown by the success of the game at the launch.

TBC wasn't perfect. TBC was just as badly imbalanced class-wise as Vanilla was. Every single expansion has had some good and some bad. TBC was far from perfect.