1. #3041
    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen Death Knight View Post
    Sure, but chipping off bits and pieces does not exactly motivate Blizzard to push things more than they have always done. A lot of damage has been caused by the game itself and its flaws, so the competition is still not that strong, if you ask me. Many have a tendency to come back to the game more or less.
    If Blizzard are not motivated by competition no matter how small they are then are idiots which I don't believe to be the case. What do mean the competition is not that strong? Once you take out the Chinese market where many MMOs do not compete with Blizzard WOW is not the powerhouse that people on these boards make out, I would not be surprised if GW2, SWTOR and WOW had similar sized player bases in the West and if they do not now it will not be long before they do. The evidence points to people do not come back to the game once they have left there have been no rises in sub numbers since the release of MOP and that was short lived. For the most part people are willing to give a product a second chance but rarely to they give a third or fourth, MOP was WOW's secpnd chance.

  2. #3042
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pann View Post
    If Blizzard are not motivated by competition no matter how small they are then are idiots which I don't believe to be the case. What do mean the competition is not that strong? Once you take out the Chinese market where many MMOs do not compete with Blizzard WOW is not the powerhouse that people on these boards make out, I would not be surprised if GW2, SWTOR and WOW had similar sized player bases in the West and if they do not now it will not be long before they do. The evidence points to people do not come back to the game once they have left there have been no rises in sub numbers since the release of MOP and that was short lived. For the most part people are willing to give a product a second chance but rarely to they give a third or fourth, MOP was WOW's secpnd chance.
    Blizzard's developers have always worked pretty hard in my book, so motivating already hard workers would need someone else to outperform their own results that change the status quo so that they can perform better as well. By all accounts Blizzard has performed remarkably well far beyond anyone else to attract customers, so pushing it even further with the results they've had is hard to do already.

  3. #3043
    Most players get burnt out. At least in my case I was burnt out after 3 months of raiding. I don't know what it was this expansion but raiding was not fun. I quit in December and just recently came back. I refuse to raid. I wont even do the LFR because I am afraid I will just hate it and get burnt out. Currently doing Pvp. I am not surprised with how many people quit after a few months of MOP my GM of 3 years quit and the only other time he quit over his 8 year period was after FL so he could play SW:TOR. This game is not dying and it will not die unless the servers go off. What you people can't seem to grasp is most MMO's F2P or P2P survive on less then a million players. Some less then 100,000. WoW has consistently had millions of players making their revenue off the charts when it comes to financial profits. Losing 1million players looks like a lot because it is a 10th of the population but it really is not that much at all. Really the only thing Blizzard should do about the loss in players is to merge low pop servers or give free transfers to get off them. Trust me I know it is not fun to play on a low pop server.

  4. #3044
    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen Death Knight View Post
    Blizzard's developers have always worked pretty hard in my book, so motivating already hard workers would need someone else to outperform their own results that change the status quo so that they can perform better as well. By all accounts Blizzard has performed remarkably well far beyond anyone else to attract customers, so pushing it even further with the results they've had is hard to do already.
    How do you know how hard Blizzard's developers work? Blizzard have not performed well attracting new customers since 2008, five years, and for the past two and half they have been losing customers at alarming rate. In most businesses after such a long period of failure if the current people are not capable of pushing it further you find people that are.

  5. #3045
    Last quarter's conference call was about a month after I had grown tired of MoP and quit. Yet, I was still in the habit of checking this site daily for updates. This time around, I no longer browse anything WoW related, and didn't even realize there was a conference call until I read about it today on some other site. Times change, and WoW is so far off my radar that it may as well not exist anymore. I would not play it in it's current state even if it turned f2p. I imagine many people are in the same boat as me, so I suspect Blizzard will have a hard time luring back former customers.

  6. #3046
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    I ended my sub about 5 or 6 weeks ago, after being continually subbed for 5+ years. I never thought the day would come, but it has done and it's the end of an era for me. I ended my sub purely because I feel the game has gone down the wrong path of late, starting with the decision to make 10 and 25 equal at the start of Cata.

  7. #3047
    Mechagnome jaber2's Avatar
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    If someone could come up and say what happened to those 1.3 million, where did they end up and what are they playing now.

  8. #3048
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    Some people just can't accept change, I guess...

  9. #3049
    Number of games that have had graphics worse than WoW that have successfully competed with WoW: 0.

    Number of games that have had graphics better than WoW that have successfully competed with WoW: 0.

    Hmm. Graphics may not be the answer.

  10. #3050
    the barrier for entry is too high for WoW.

    Most people that are interested in trying out a new game, just want to buy the game and be able to play it. With WoW, you have to buy the game, then buy several more games, then set up your subscription. Then you can finally play.

    If they really wanted to survive, stop separating the expansions from the original game. Every new expansion should come with ALL previous games. This would allow new players to revive the game.

  11. #3051
    Quote Originally Posted by Zurtle View Post
    the barrier for entry is too high for WoW.

    Most people that are interested in trying out a new game, just want to buy the game and be able to play it. With WoW, you have to buy the game, then buy several more games, then set up your subscription. Then you can finally play.

    If they really wanted to survive, stop separating the expansions from the original game. Every new expansion should come with ALL previous games. This would allow new players to revive the game.
    Actually to get a feel for the game you just have to download. If after a few hours you enjoy it you can then start buying, surely? Even then you're looking at barely more than 1 full game price for everything up to latest expansion, would be silly to buy when you're a new level 20. You're more likely to just buy the piece you need (£4 is it now?) to be allowed to play to 80 for a month.
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    which is kind of like saying "of COURSE you can't see the unicorns, unicorns are invisible, silly."

  12. #3052
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    Quote Originally Posted by Raiju View Post
    Actually to get a feel for the game you just have to download. If after a few hours you enjoy it you can then start buying, surely? Even then you're looking at barely more than 1 full game price for everything up to latest expansion, would be silly to buy when you're a new level 20. You're more likely to just buy the piece you need (£4 is it now?) to be allowed to play to 80 for a month.
    thats the thing though, you dont really experience a whole lot in that 20 level trial. when there are other games out there that are b2p, f2p or have trials that will allow you to level to max level, new customers are going to look at that and say "hmm i can play this game a lot more for a lot less"

    WoWs trial needs to at the bare minimum allow you to level to 60 and im of the mindset that every expansion should be free upon the release of a new one as well as 1 month free game time with the release of a new expansion

  13. #3053
    Immortal Frozen Death Knight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pann View Post
    How do you know how hard Blizzard's developers work? Blizzard have not performed well attracting new customers since 2008, five years, and for the past two and half they have been losing customers at alarming rate. In most businesses after such a long period of failure if the current people are not capable of pushing it further you find people that are.
    Blizzard has increased their revenue despite the subscription losses and even they have admitted that they did not expect the game to continue to be as popular for so many years. By many accounts they have been very, very successful.

    Also, no one in the MMO business has truly succeeded with what you are criticizing Blizzard's employers for, so replacing them when they still bring in results that outclass any other game in the market makes no business sense at all. If you were in charge you would have crashed the company with such ridiculous policies.
    Last edited by Frozen Death Knight; 2013-05-18 at 10:27 AM.

  14. #3054
    Herald of the Titans Eorayn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mad_Murdock View Post
    Dude! come on! WoW hasn't had a growth quarter in over 2 years. How are you going to get them back ? You don't have to be a naysayer "wow" is dying zealot to see the game is shrinking. At a pretty fast pace now at that.
    The game isn't "dying", it's declining.

  15. #3055
    Quote Originally Posted by Eorayn View Post
    The game isn't "dying", it's declining.
    Sorry but it is a fact its dying the question is how long until its dead 5 months....5 years...50 years...No one knows but it is dying this isn't a argument its a fact anyone to disagree's is just in denial.

    Feel free to bash/yell at me but yes wow is dying anything that can age is dying wow is not immune to this rule. The difference in a few years ago and now is we see it more clearly with the sub drop.

    WOW will never reach 12 million subs again "unless they pull a rabbit out of the hat" and subs will get lower until they balance out at some point for awhile but even that won't be forever.

    Blizzard themselves have done stated that by the end of MOP subs will be lower. No clue how low that will be would be 1 sub could be 1 million more subs.

    My personal guess is it will be around 5-6 million subs left when mop ends.
    Last edited by Jtbrig7390; 2013-05-18 at 10:59 AM.
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  16. #3056
    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen Death Knight View Post
    Blizzard has increased their revenue despite the subscription losses and even they have admitted that they did not expect the game to continue to be as popular for so many years. By many accounts they have been very, very successful.

    Also, no one in the MMO business has truly succeeded with what you are criticizing Blizzard's employers for, so replacing them when they still bring in results that outclass any other game in the market makes no business sense at all. If you were in charge you would have crashed the company with such ridiculous policies.
    That is not working hard that is charging your customers more for less or the same. No is arguing that WOW was not successful.

    Eve is ten years old and still growing, SWTOR has just added 1.7 million players so that is two MMOs that are growing whilst WOW is shrinking. I am sorry you do not like the idea of replacing people who are not performing but that is the reality of the world. The growth WOW saw in its early years is nothing short of amazing but as the saying goes "You are only as good as your last set of results."

  17. #3057
    Quote Originally Posted by Jtbrig7390 View Post
    Sorry but it is a fact its dying the question is how long until its dead 5 months....5 years...50 years...No one knows but it is dying this isn't a argument its a fact anyone to disagree's is just in denial.
    Yes, in the same sense everything is dying.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pann View Post
    That is not working hard that is charging your customers more for less or the same. No is arguing that WOW was not successful.

    Eve is ten years old and still growing, SWTOR has just added 1.7 million players so that is two MMOs that are growing whilst WOW is shrinking. I am sorry you do not like the idea of replacing people who are not performing but that is the reality of the world. The growth WOW saw in its early years is nothing short of amazing but as the saying goes "You are only as good as your last set of results."
    Yes, one of the guys am I! I've played for 30 mins and invested 0 money but everyone at EA and bioware is cheering because they had one player more!

  18. #3058
    Quote Originally Posted by Hubbl3 View Post
    Yes, one of the guys am I! I've played for 30 mins and invested 0 money but everyone at EA and bioware is cheering because they had one player more!
    So am I and I'm sure that we are not alone, but that does not change the fact that of those 1.7 million enough of them stuck around and spent enough money to double SWTOR's revenue which I'm sure you'll agree would be cause to cheer.

  19. #3059
    Immortal Frozen Death Knight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pann View Post
    That is not working hard that is charging your customers more for less or the same. No is arguing that WOW was not successful.

    Eve is ten years old and still growing, SWTOR has just added 1.7 million players so that is two MMOs that are growing whilst WOW is shrinking. I am sorry you do not like the idea of replacing people who are not performing but that is the reality of the world. The growth WOW saw in its early years is nothing short of amazing but as the saying goes "You are only as good as your last set of results."
    Wait, did you just have SW: TOR and successful in one sentence? Why should I even take you seriously at this point?

    They do work hard. Contrary to internet belief, if they did not work hard they would not be employed to work on WoW. Their hard work has paid off as well, so replacing them when they still manage to keep the revenue flowing in after all these years is outright moronic. Again, you would make a terrible business man with your less than stellar logic.
    Last edited by Frozen Death Knight; 2013-05-18 at 01:24 PM.

  20. #3060
    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen Death Knight View Post
    Also, no one in the MMO business has truly succeeded with what you are criticizing Blizzard's employers for, so replacing them when they still bring in results that outclass any other game in the market makes no business sense at all. If you were in charge you would have crashed the company with such ridiculous policies.
    I would advocate that anyone who is advising an organization to benchmark its performance against significantly smaller competition (particularly when it is the industry leader) and is willing to tolerate double digit subscription losses in a time period of less than a year from a set of designers who have been entrenched in the management structure for many years doesn't at all understand the business world in the first place.

    Just to add value to this discussion, when you are the business leader, you set the standards for performance that you can expect, using incremental percentages and based on consumption trends. a 1.3 Million loss of your consumers in a 3 month period is a metric that screams "time for something new" and is by no measure "bringing in the results" as you aptly put it.

    I'm also not sure that "Revenue has increased" either...

    Should these guys be recognized for their past contributions? sure, give em a big fat bonus, offer them an executive consulting role, and bring in some fresh blood - this is an innovation industry and the definition of stale is having the same people at the top driving the "Innovation" year after year.
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