1.3 million sub drop

[dejaa]

The game is too monotonous.

The reward structure of the game was drastically changed for MoP. Progression is very incremental, in many cases so incremental that the effort required isn't worth the reward. There's a lot of content, but little of it is satisfying. One of the most common statements I hear on my vent, which is usually populated by a number of friends from dead or dieing guilds, when players are in LFR goes something like this: "I got a back of dicks. Wait, make that two bags of dicks."

[Cirque]

The reward structure of the game was drastically changed for MoP. Progression is very incremental, in many cases so incremental that the effort required isn't worth the reward. There's a lot of content, but little of it is satisfying. One of the most common statements I hear on my vent, which is usually populated by a number of friends from dead or dieing guilds, when players are in LFR goes something like this: "I got a back of dicks. Wait, make that two bags of dicks."

If you mean to say progression is too slow because of the bags of gold, I strongly disagree. Never before has gearing been so easy, even if you're unlucky and yes I have been so very unlucky with LFR myself.

I do however agree it's simply not satisfying. There is no "casual" experience that is exciting. Dailies aren't, LFR isn't. There's is no YES feeling when you get something because you worked for it, but it's more a "finally", because everything IS so easy to get. That makes the game non-exciting and predictable.

[therayeffect]

If you mean to say progression is too slow because of the bags of gold, I strongly disagree. Never before has gearing been so easy, even if you're unlucky and yes I have been so very unlucky with LFR myself.

I do however agree it's simply not satisfying. There is no "casual" experience that is exciting. Dailies aren't, LFR isn't. There's is no YES feeling when you get something because you worked for it, but it's more a "finally", because everything IS so easy to get. That makes the game non-exciting and predictable.

Your argument is right along with that video that the guy made, "The problem in the mists (of Pandaria)". It's hard to argue with him. The "Epic" feeling is completely gone from WoW. It's hard really to say what is the problem though that ended up causing it. I really don't believe the game would be any better off if it was still "epic" and challenging.

[Durandro]

I see people still aren't getting this into their heads.

Most of the sub losses were in China specifically. Apperently I need to point out why this is:

Either:
1/ Laws in China have changed so its more difficult to get an active account (there are heavy restrictions on everything here),
2/ There were a huge number of gold farmer accounts in China that got banned,
3/ There were a huge number of BG bots/multiboxers in China that got banned,
4/ People in China wanted to try something new and home-grown.

None of these things effect the vast majority of people here. But keep deluding yourselves if it helps justify your hatred of a game you probably don't even play anymore. Selective ignorance is a powerful drug.

[Cirque]

Your argument is right along with that video that the guy made, "The problem in the mists (of Pandaria)". It's hard to argue with him. The "Epic" feeling is completely gone from WoW. It's hard really to say what is the problem though that ended up causing it. I really don't believe the game would be any better off if it was still "epic" and challenging.

No, I completely agree, I also don't think the game would be any better if there'd be 'epic' and 'challenging' again, either. It makes it a nasty little problem though. Thankfully, WOW devs always prove to be very resourceful, so maybe they'll come up with something!

Edit: I haven't seen that vid, I'll see if I can find it.

[Ragashii]

If you mean to say progression is too slow because of the bags of gold, I strongly disagree. Never before has gearing been so easy, even if you're unlucky and yes I have been so very unlucky with LFR myself.

I do however agree it's simply not satisfying. There is no "casual" experience that is exciting. Dailies aren't, LFR isn't. There's is no YES feeling when you get something because you worked for it, but it's more a "finally", because everything IS so easy to get. That makes the game non-exciting and predictable.

The launch of mists was really weak as well. The first few weeks were probably the most grueling thing a lot of players ever had to experience. To rush to level cap as they always have only to be cockblocked by reputation that you are only allowed to get a certain amount of per day/week. So the people that banked 4k justice couldn't even spend it because they weren't honored with any faction since they cherry picked areas to hit level cap real fast. Start grinding out heroics which drop 463 gear, meanwhile the justice vendor sells 450 gear that is "meant to help you if you are unlucky with drops." How? Two major factions were locked behind the golden lotus, who took weeks to hit revered with. So by the time you could potentially use your justice points they were worthless. Is it any wonder that people went to pvp gear for upgrades? What the hell else could you buy? All the valor gear cost more than 1k and required revered rep to purchase.

I don't know about other people, but I will never forget that.

[Cirque]

I see people still aren't getting this into their heads.

Most of the sub losses were in China specifically. Apperently I need to point out why this is:

Either:
1/ Laws in China have changed so its more difficult to get an active account (there are heavy restrictions on everything here),
2/ There were a huge number of gold farmer accounts in China that got banned,
3/ There were a huge number of BG bots/multiboxers in China that got banned,
4/ People in China wanted to try something new and home-grown.

None of these things effect the vast majority of people here. But keep deluding yourselves if it helps justify your hatred of a game you probably don't even play anymore. Selective ignorance is a powerful drug.

Alternatively you'll read the thread, so you can see there's little hatred, but just a healthy discussion of what could be better in WoW or what the causes could be for declining subs. I for one don't know how many of these players are Chinese, and how many aren't, so without that information we really can't say how right or wrong you are anyway. I'm sure you're totally right for a vast number of Chinese, but Asia is not only China, and it's not only Asia that had declining subs. Even if it's "only" 300k that are European/American, it's still an impressive number of lost subs as far as I'm concerned, and worth discussing.

[Grummgug]

Former Wow player here...

I got sick and tired of the constant changes and updates years ago, and unsubbed for that reason. Making more changes would only drive former players like me further away. I wonder how many of those who left feel like I do. I mean, when a new xpac would come out, I'd quit the game for a while because it is such a chore relearning everything.

I went back to D2 because its really fun and Blizzard doesn't make patches for it anymore. Its a stable game I can enjoy.

If Blizzard released a vanilla server, and pledged to never patch it or alter anything, I'd be interested in that.

[Cirque]

The launch of mists was really weak as well. The first few weeks were probably the most grueling thing a lot of players ever had to experience. To rush to level cap as they always have only to be cockblocked by reputation that you are only allowed to get a certain amount of per day/week. So the people that banked 4k justice couldn't even spend it because they weren't honored with any faction since they cherry picked areas to hit level cap real fast. Start grinding out heroics which drop 463 gear, meanwhile the justice vendor sells 450 gear that is "meant to help you if you are unlucky with drops." How? Two major factions were locked behind the golden lotus, who took weeks to hit revered with. So by the time you could potentially use your justice points they were worthless. Is it any wonder that people went to pvp gear for upgrades? What the hell else could you buy? All the valor gear cost more than 1k and required revered rep to purchase.

I don't know about other people, but I will never forget that.

I personally didn't have much of an issue with that, I was, to be honest, glad I didn't have to do that many dailies in one go. Being on an Alliance heavy server, Horde must have it a lot worse though. PvP gear was very strong and would have been very strong even if things had been different at launch, too, which to me was actually more annoying than the daily fiasco (because I'll agree that the dailypart of this expansion is a fiasco). If you didn't cap Conquest, you weren't doing it right, and as it turned out I didn't really know Conquest items were so powerful so yeah, I basically was behind my raid in gear because I didn't even THINK of looking at PvP items.

[therayeffect]

I see people still aren't getting this into their heads.

Most of the sub losses were in China specifically. Apperently I need to point out why this is:

Either:
1/ Laws in China have changed so its more difficult to get an active account (there are heavy restrictions on everything here),
2/ There were a huge number of gold farmer accounts in China that got banned,
3/ There were a huge number of BG bots/multiboxers in China that got banned,
4/ People in China wanted to try something new and home-grown.

None of these things effect the vast majority of people here. But keep deluding yourselves if it helps justify your hatred of a game you probably don't even play anymore. Selective ignorance is a powerful drug.

What? Vast majority of people are just discussing why and doing it quite calmly. No need to get so angry and make yourself sound like a fanboi. Relax.

[paralleluniverse]

Here we go again.

Another announcement of subs lost, and how do people respond? The same way they always do:
"WoW is dying because of <insert personal gripe here>, and will be doomed unless <personal gripe> is fixed NOW!"

This sort of scapegoating sub losses on personal gripes, such as the lack of world PvP (faction balance makes world PvP pointless), or LFR is too easy (easy content is easy, who knew, go kill Ra-den), the removal of talent trees (copying cookie-cutter builds made them pointless anyway), etc, happens every time subs fall.

No, it's very unlikely that WoW has lost 1.3 million subs specifically because of your personal gripe with the game.

[Glorious Leader]

If you mean to say progression is too slow because of the bags of gold, I strongly disagree. Never before has gearing been so easy, even if you're unlucky and yes I have been so very unlucky with LFR myself.

I do however agree it's simply not satisfying. There is no "casual" experience that is exciting. Dailies aren't, LFR isn't. There's is no YES feeling when you get something because you worked for it, but it's more a "finally", because everything IS so easy to get. That makes the game non-exciting and predictable.

It isn't hard it's just SLOW. Bloated loot tables in raids, stingy valor gains and valor caps, nauseating rep grinds tied to spending valor, rng on top of rng. It's horrible.

We've Disenchanted more gear in normal tot than we've actually used in tot. In 10 weeks of raiding we've seen one trash bop. We don't get weapons to drop, not sure they exist, let alone thunder forged.

[Vankrys]

Wrathbabies and late-TBC idiots were what destroyed community.

please entertain me what is a TBC idiot?

the game is nothing like TBC, hasn't been TBC model since, well TBC
TBC model is

normal dungeon - heroic dungeon - first tier - second tier - third tier
all tie r available at launch, well black temple wa released in 2.1 2 month after expansion release
how fast you get to illidan depends how go you are, took me more than a year personally, but illidan was there waiting for me
no short cut, no welfare epics. To get to the second tier, you will need to farm the first tier a few weeks for gear.

now model is you jump into whatever tier is the curent tier, there are shortcut to gear up to the current tier, tier are release on a strict schedule. Getting to the last boss does not depends on how god you are but when is blizzard releasing the dungeon.

Now tell me, how TBC idiotinfluence the current state of the game. What part of the modele is TBC inspired.
(hint : relative difficulty is not a modele, it's a difficulty settings)

[Ragashii]

Here we go again.

Another announcement of subs lost, and how do people respond? The same way they always do:
"WoW is dying because of <insert personal gripe here>, and will be doomed unless <personal gripe> is fixed NOW!"

This sort of scapegoating sub losses on personal gripes, such as the lack of world PvP (faction balance makes world PvP pointless), or LFR is too easy (easy content is easy, who knew, go kill Ra-den), the removal of talent trees (copying cookie-cutter builds made them pointless anyway), etc, happens every time subs fall.

No, it's very unlikely that WoW has lost 1.3 million subs specifically because your personal gripe with the game.

People like you, that can't even read a post above you annoy me so much. This isn't even a WoW is dying zomg doomsday thread. GTFO
It's 66 pages ffs.

[therayeffect]

The launch of mists was really weak as well. The first few weeks were probably the most grueling thing a lot of players ever had to experience. To rush to level cap as they always have only to be cockblocked by reputation that you are only allowed to get a certain amount of per day/week. So the people that banked 4k justice couldn't even spend it because they weren't honored with any faction since they cherry picked areas to hit level cap real fast. Start grinding out heroics which drop 463 gear, meanwhile the justice vendor sells 450 gear that is "meant to help you if you are unlucky with drops." How? Two major factions were locked behind the golden lotus, who took weeks to hit revered with. So by the time you could potentially use your justice points they were worthless. Is it any wonder that people went to pvp gear for upgrades? What the hell else could you buy? All the valor gear cost more than 1k and required revered rep to purchase.

I don't know about other people, but I will never forget that.

I knew going into Mists that it was going to be awful at the start. They really focused on the old grind and it was so awful. I was able to put up with it on my main but I basically abandoned all of my alts because it was just too brutal. On top of that we really wanted to be an awesome guild for MoP and just blow our competition out of the water so we were raiding 20 hours a week. I've never hated this game so much in my life and been so done with a game as I was with the beginning of MoP. I quit happily in January and swore off the game but my goddamn friends started playing again so I'm back. We're raiding a whole lot less and alts are more viable now and will be a bit better in 5.3. I agree with you though, everyone seemed to burn out so goddamn hard. Doing dailies over and over and over and over on top of the grind for the 300 food and potions and all of that and how absolutely brutal it was (and still is) to cap valor. Jesus it was so awful. At least we were good and have some good memories from it. Got to see our names on the front page of US 10man progression.

[Ragashii]

no short cut, no welfare epics. To get to the second tier, you will need to farm the first tier a few weeks for gear.

Welfare epics started in Burning Crusade. Season 2 welfare epics to be specific.

[Vankrys]

A 1.3 million loss isn't that bad when your sub average lies around 10 million. If a game developper has to run around swearing and crying like some of the posters do when they lose 10% of their market, there wouldn't be any time for developping. I mean this exact same thing happened in cataclysm and the game rebounded at the start of MoP.

I'm pretty sure they'll another 800k when the final raid is up, and lose another million in between end and new expansion.

+ Another reason they shouldn't worry, wow is majorly driven by teenagers which all probably use their allowance or extra earnings to pay, so when they can't afford it, they drop out for a while and return as soon as they can, it could be the reason why every quarter it fluctuates up and down in big spikes. You also had SC HoTS coming out in this quarter, probably hurting their Asian market quite a bit.

i guess you don't own your business, because a reduction of income of about 10-15% in just 3 month time is really bad.
try to imagine you salary shrink by 10% every 3 month, while life continue to get more expensive.

[Isheria]

......................................LFR .............Normal ............Heroic
Right now raids look like this EASY--------HARD---------HARDER. If the "average" guild can't clear the current normal tier then what is that tier being balanced against? If the "average" guild isn't supposed to clear the current tier until they get full upgrades and the content is fully nerfed then what does the "average" guild do in the meantime? If ToT isn't cleared by "average" guilds then it is too hard. People don't like dying over and over to a brickwall. There's a reason certain bosses were called guildbreakers back in the day.

This is where beer league comes in. It keeps the "average" guild happy and subscribed. Agreeing with you btw.

If average guilds can't clear normal mode as you say it the answer is not to nerf everything to their level. Normal is not even remotely difficult, if a so called "average" guild can't clear it then they're not average they're awful, that's the truth and they should play better instead. The fact that you're even suggesting "normal is too hard for most people better nerf everything to the ground" is pretty stupid.

[paralleluniverse]

People like you, that can't even read a post above you annoy me so much. This isn't even a WoW is dying zomg doomsday thread. GTFO
It's 66 pages ffs.

What are you talking about? This thread is full of complaints about why this game is dying, and that's exactly the argument in my post.

Here's a random example: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post21069465

[Pann]

Here we go again.

Another announcement of subs lost, and how do people respond? The same way they always do:
"WoW is dying because of <insert personal gripe here>, and will be doomed unless <personal gripe> is fixed NOW!"

This sort of scapegoating sub losses on personal gripes, such as the lack of world PvP (faction balance makes world PvP pointless), or LFR is too easy (easy content is easy, who knew, go kill Ra-den), the removal of talent trees (copying cookie-cutter builds made them pointless anyway), etc, happens every time subs fall.

No, it's very unlikely that WoW has lost 1.3 million subs specifically because of your personal gripe with the game.

Why not try reading the thread before wading in with nonsense?

It is likely that WOW has lost 1.3 million subs to many different people's personal gripes when people start sharing those gripes then we should be discussing them. Why do you feel the need to dismiss the issues others have with the game? How does this help the game?