Resons why WoW is "dying"

[galluk]

I do agree we have lost the social aspect of the game.

I mean, it's been forever since Trade chat had the old Anal |insert skill|. Or start throwing Murloc into movie names, which let's be honest, was when people were the most social.

Otherwise, the game is old. more decent F2P options are out there.

[marthsk]

yeah, let's talk!

if wow is dying, other MMOs never have been alive! *booom*

Ooooohhh!!! #BARS

[paralleluniverse]

I do agree we have lost the social aspect of the game.

I mean, it's been forever since Trade chat had the old Anal |insert skill|. Or start throwing Murloc into movie names, which let's be honest, was when people were the most social.

Otherwise, the game is old. more decent F2P options are out there.

How should the game be made more "social"? What specifically should Blizzard do?

Remove LFG and LFR? Force people to group via chat?

[Mad_Murdock]

yeah, let's talk!

if wow is dying, other MMOs never have been alive! *booom*

Isn't that mostly true though ?

I think we need to apply a different criteria for "dying" or "dead" and that is relevant. Counterstrike is 14 years old and still shows at least 50,000 people a day playing. But is it relevant ? Does it affect how other FPS are created or when they ship. Is there a debate on which game they should host a local tournaments, Call of Duty or Counter-Strike ?

There is a point in which WoW may not be dead, but it won't be relevant to the gaming scene. Tomshardware.com still runs benchmarks using WoW because so many of their readers still play it and Blizzard updates the graphics on it. When WoW is no longer revelant, things like that will stop happening.

WoW has lost nearly 4 million subs since the end of Wrath. 1 and 1/2 Xpacs has lost nearly a quarter of the subs. I don't share the optimism that the bleeding as stopped. WoW will definatly not be relevant for decades to come. In fact, I predict that WoW will cease to be relevant, just like EQ1, by the end of this decade, if it makes it that long.

Now if you want to argue that WoW will be relevant with 1 million subs, that's a interesting debate.

[Sivick]

I'm about to say a few reasons why i believe WoW is "dying". I really hope a Blizzard employee is reading this, and I ask you all to debate why the subs are constantly going down.

1- The social aspect of the game is gone: There is a serious lack of player interaction in the game. You don't have to form any bonds within the game in order to succed. Easy LFRs and "Heroics" play a big part in here, since you don't have to communicate anymore in order to come up with a good strategy. Guild perks and rewards also contribue to this situation, right now guilds are a bunch of players groupd in order to increase the guild level and to give players rewards. Guild levels / perks / rewards were a terrible addition to the game, because right now a lot of guilds have no real goals, no real player interaction... they are just a bunch of players looking for guild rewards.

2- The lack of the seems of adventure: Yeah, I know, Pandaria can be a fascinating continent... but the PvE experience there, for casuals, is just ridiculous. Players can basically afk in LFR or just pretend to play during a "heroic" dungeon in order to get gear. There is no fun in doing herocis anymore. I remember back in TBC that heroics required tons of coordination, and CC actually meant something, and you know what? I was FUN!!! I mean, of course there were some very hard heroics, such as Shattred Halls and Shadow labs, but there were "easy" heroics that required a good group effort, such as Hellfire Ramparts. Wipes are part of this game. A ridiculously easy game is a boring game, but a challenging game can last forever!

3- Empty servers: Players want a solution to empty servers, and want a solution NOW! We are tired of "we were talking about solutions" excuses. Servers are falling apart and guilds are closng their doors, it's time to give us a solution instead of promises. (No, CRZ is not a solution, it is actually a problem).

4- Dailies: Valor points + countless dailies and reputations... yeah

5- Alts: MoP is a very alt unfriendly expansion, do I need to say more?

6- The lore: The lore is not that interesting. Look at TBC, we face major characters of WoW's lore, such as illidan, kil'jaeden, kael (twice), Vashj, etc. In WotLK we face the Lich King himself alongside his army (anub arak, kel'thuzad, etc)... But not... we fight some creatures we have never heard of (Mogu, Sha, mantid), waiting to finally kill the warchief that basially noone likes. Another problem is how the alliance lore was poorly developed. I play on the horde side, but I feel pity for all the alliance players who have to put up with that storyline... I mean, where are the Draenei? What about the worgen? and the night elves, what is tyrande doing? And WHY do we have to fight the trolls in the middle of a snowstorm?

7- The gear: Too many tiers of gear, it makes the gamme too complicated and create means to segregate players.

That's all folks! Feel free to talk!

1) totally agree
2) that's not even the right word and i also disagree with this sentiment.
3) that's a big problem
4) meh, not so much anymore
5) i'd agree with that.
6) totally disagree, i've quite enjoyed the lore and the way it was presented this time around. Honestly, do you want to listen to stories about the same motherfuckers we've heard of over and over and over and over again for the last 10 years? new shit! be happy!
7) you can never have too much gear, stop yer bitchin.

[Hulm]

you must be new here, since people have been posting "wow is dying" every time mmo-champ posts a quarterly

[Ranklune]

I'm really hungover, so I don't want to get into all of your points. Though, the point I do agree with is the social aspect of the game. Back in TBC I used to watch at my cousin playing on his level 70 mage, it was so much fun to see him look for a group in the /general /trade channel and get the things done he wanted to get done with the group he was searching for. Now it's just clicking a button, wait in line to join a dungeon and go full tunnel-vision for either a pile of gold or epics.

I dunno, I wouldn't mind if the Dungeon Finder never excisted.

[Vankrys]

what killed it for me is this




during the first minute of that trailer, i was like "HELL YEAH", then the new chapter came along, and i was like "huh?", then i was like "wtf" and finally i was like "meh, fuck it"

to say that i was majorly underwhelmed by a trailer is understatement. That killed my hype for pandaria right there.

and frankly look at the like/dislike of this 6 millions views video.

[Deleted]

While I don't agree that WoW is 'dying' per se, it IS old, 8 years, (9 in September iirc?) is a fair while in anyones book, especially for a PC game...

[loki504]

what killed it for me is this




during the first minute of that trailer, i was like "HELL YEAH", then the new chapter came along, and i was like "huh?", then i was like "wtf" and finally i was like "meh, fuck it"

to say that i was majorly underwhelmed by a trailer is understatement. That killed my hype for pandaria right there.

and frankly look at the like/dislike of this 6 millions views video.

LOL you really want to rate a expension based on like/dislike ratio on the youtube video? youtube is full of trolls and idiots.

and you like/dislike the VIDEO not the game. and its around 50/50. up32.728 down 31.251 so abit more then 60k voted yet almost 6m watched it. so only around 10% voted. yea lets take that as a example. why could you not let people enjoy the game they like and just keep your mouth shut if you dislike?

[Falkano]

Some will say it isn't dying and they are right, it will be around for a long time to come. But it is "declining" and losing nearly 20% of players in three months would indicate at an alarming rate. Personally I don't buy the line it is mostly in Asia as that was used at the last Q call. In 6 months Wow has dropped by nearly 2m. How many players are there in Asia?!

For me the reason I quit was simply because the social side of the game died. Blizz killed off guilds (going 10man happy), killed off reasons to get to know people on your own realm (cross realm killed this), Requiring you to do a lot of time consuming and boring tasks that you pretty much do solo (dailies) etc
It is more like a single player game now where you have no need to know people you play with and because of that you can behave how you like. There are no consequences for your behaviour. Where as before when it was not cross realm you got to know who to party with and who not to group with. If you were a douche you would not get far.

There is no reason to know anyone anymore and because of that the game is suffering. It is a single player game and quite frankly there are far better single player games out there.

[Deletedaccount1]

The small dead servers are the reason people are quitting. I play on Illidan US so when they announce sub losses I don't get very upset because it doesn't affect me since I'm on a huge server. Blizzard needs to shut down or merge servers to slow the decline.

[Spl4sh3r]

WoW is not dying, anyone who makes these threads are on the verge of quitting the game. So instead of trying to make us give argument that the game is alive you could quit already instead of making thread after thread after thread of the exact same thing someone else made before.

[Vankrys]

LOL you really want to rate a expension based on like/dislike ratio on the youtube video? youtube is full of trolls and idiots.

and you like/dislike the VIDEO not the game.

that may be true, but it's really rare to such such high dislike rating on a video games trailer, don't think i have seen any trailer getting that much dislike, even alien colonial marine.

that must say something no?

[uopayroll]

Hey mods how about a new rule on the forum...all wow is dieing threads shall be deleted and the person that created them will be publicly flogged -.-

Or all mod wannabes get this treatment instead?

[Byniri]

1. Absolutely agree. The social aspect seems to be decreasing daily.
2. Eh, I kinda agree. Pre-nerf Cata heroics were pretty fun.
3. Yes, yes, and YES on this one. This is the biggest issue right now.
4. Not really that much of an issue anymore, given all the new ways to get rep.
5. Absolutely agree, although it's getting better in 5.3
6. I really agree on this point. A lot of new lore was introduced, and while that's not bad, it can really make a disconnection between WoW and the original Warcraft series.
7. Non-issue IMO.

So 4.5/7 I agree with.

[loki504]

that may be true, but it's really rare to such such high dislike rating on a video games trailer, don't think i have seen any trailer getting that much dislike, even alien colonial marine.

that must say something no?

it means people disliked the video. so what the video sucked the game still rocks imo

remember the cata sucks bla bla bla fiasco on the forum?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq4Y7ztznKc

so by your logic cata rocked like hell.

[Phototropic]

WoW isn't dying... well, in the Tibetan philosophy, Sylvia Plath sense of the word, I know we're all dying. But WoW isn't dying the way that terminal cancer patients are dying.

Subscriptions are declining, sure. Is it the beginning of the end? Maybe. Does this stop you from personally enjoying the game? If so, then stop playing and let others continue... maybe less people shouting about how the sky is falling will help it stop falling, or at least slow it down.

PS. I hate tautology.

[Falkano]

WoW is not dying, anyone who makes these threads are on the verge of quitting the game. So instead of trying to make us give argument that the game is alive you could quit already instead of making thread after thread after thread of the exact same thing someone else made before.

Losing 16% of the player base in 3 months would indicate there is something wrong no?

If you put it into perspective and change the words Blizzard to say Facebook. If almost 20% of people left within 12 weeks would you think that it was still alive and doing well?

It isn't dying, it is declining. People talking about those reasons is a good thing. Slagging off people and doing the l33t thing just drives more of the community away.
I would much rather play a game where people talked about the issues and tried to improve them then adopt the whole "if you don't like it then quit" approach.

[fangless]

Because we're coming up on NINE years.

If you can find a way to get people to sign up for this game, that haven't already ... you'd probably be able to get a job quickly at Blizzard.