Do you think the lol panda image before MoP helped the loss?

[Maximus Testiculos]

Do you think the 'pandas in my wow' kind of backwards thougth really made a big prejudice against MoP? And blizzard was not really able to break it?

When pandaria was announced many people dismissed it as the worst thing to happen to wow without knowing anything about it and they stayed away from it. No matter what blizzard did many people still hold the same belief. Do you think it helped in losing big numbers?

[slime]

Maybe. But seriously, pandas is a race - leave the game because they added another race option? bu-bye!

[Deleted]

No, for the simple fact that the subs went up when the expansion come out. And the Pandaren were only the focus on 5.0.

[Byniri]

No, because if that had had any sort of effect, it would have been seen in the 2 quarters before this.

[Deleted]

Doing dailies for night elves is no different from doing dailies for pandas

[Pull My Finger]

I don't think so. I also don't see the supposed "lol image". I think the Pandaren are a very cool, very likeable, highly recognizable and well written race.

I think the subs are simply declining because of the age of the game - people are naturally moving on after all these years. Also, the player base has always fluctuated. People were quitting - temporarily or permanently - all the time. It's just that the game has passed it's prime in terms of the lifespan of a product. People quitting used to get compensated by new people picking up the game. It's just not realistic to expect a lot of new players to the game in this day and age.

WoW has pretty much reached all the people possible. There's a limited contigent of potential players a MMO can draw, the number of potentially interested players is finite, and they are split up among many more different games and subscription/participation models. WoW has pretty much maxed out the potential. It's perfectly natural that the game is in a state of decline by now - more and more people just simply growing out of it, but no new people coming in. The game is just simply old.

Blizzard also acknowledged that they couldn't keep casual players around this time very well. I think it has to do with the fact that MoP really isn't very casual-friendly overall. Playing alts has been made unreasonably difficult, and the game is way unrewarding compared to Cata and WotLK. You're not getting anywhere. Running 5 mans, for example, hardly makes any sense at all. They completely ruined the point of having justice points in the game, they're just useless. The miniscule weekly valor cap and the absurdly low amount of valor you accumulate by doing dungeons just makes it nearly impossible and pointless to even try and get gear in a reasonable time frame. Casuals got used to a completely different situation over the last years. There's very little to look forward to.

LFR drop rates are garbage and demotivating, and there's just not enough variety in running the same few LFR dungeons week after week. Another problem was that players felt totally overwhelmed by all the different reputation factions and stuff that gets thrown at them after they hit 90 - and in contrast to the game constantly trying to remember you to "slow down", you're actually having trouble with keeping up because they're churning out content patches so fast this time around. The progression path is totally confusing and cannibalizes itself.

I think that's what drew a lot of casuals off in MoP. It's kinda pointless to try and do something, because you're hardly doing any progress, everything's kind of out of reach and takes an unreasonable amount of time - you're never on the pulse of things. As soon as you get close to accomplishing something, it already becomes obsolete. There's not a moment in the game where you have the feeling that you're in a good place and somewhat on top of things.

[StationaryHawk]

If it had been that which drove the subscribers away, we wouldn't just be seeing the subscriber loss now.

[Glaziola]

Pandas probably have not much to do with it.

[Detheavn]

Do you think the 'pandas in my wow' kind of backwards thougth really made a big prejudice against MoP? And blizzard was not really able to break it?

I love pandas in my WoW. Always hoped they'd introduce them someday. Ever since there was an 'unannounced' race for TBC I had high hopes. Now there's an entire expansion about Pandaria and I'm loving it.

Now all I need is playable murlocs

[dokilar]

i dont think so but honestly with as fickle as gamers are today theres really no way of knowing.

personally, even though ive heard the story is pretty good, the asian theme and the pandas isnt something that grabs at me and says "play me". just a matter of preference i believe

[inkberry]

I quit before MoP because of the pandaren. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I only came back because some real life friends decided to.

[Deleted]

Partially, but the hit regarding this was taken before MoP was even launched. Why? because the people thought "oh, pandas coming, no reason to play anymore" so they quit. The losses now aren't related to that anymore.

[Ferocity]

I have nothing against pandas at all. However, when expansion was officially introduced at Blizzcon, I was soooooo much disappointed, I thought it was some kind of well-made joke. There are so many storylines and villains in WoW, which could get their own expansion, and they went with THIS?...

I can see why people don't like this expansion's theme at all. Perhaps if it was something more WoW related (e.g., Emerald Dream), people would be more tolerant towards all the multitude of flaws of this expansion (new "talents" and further dumbification of RPG part of game in general, dailies, lack of 5-men and so on).

[Yig]

It's hilarious to see you all using any hint of a decline in this game's subs as a vehicle for your own qualms. Develop some psychological moxy and learn some basic critical thinking. Subs spike at the start of an expansion, they never are sustained, and they likely never will be. Yet near record highs bounce back almost every expansion from near record lows, but it seems they just can't resist the urge to indulge their pet peeves as if they're nearly universal.

When there is a change in the usual pattern, you can start blaming something more than age, so far there isn't and it's ignorant at best to ignore that and dishonest at worst.

[Zaelsino]

Just a bit. I know ex-players who were put off by the label alone, since it "obviously isn't a serious expansion."

Kind of sad. I personally think MoP's storytelling is a lot better than previous expansions, even if I'm not a huge fan of Pandaria and its denizens myself.

[Yig]

I have nothing against pandas at all. However, when expansion was officially introduced at Blizzcon, I was soooooo much disappointed, I thought it was some kind of well-made joke. There are so many storylines and villains in WoW, which could get their own expansion, and they went with THIS?...

I can see why people don't like this expansion's theme at all. Perhaps if it was something more WoW related (e.g., Emerald Dream), people would be more tolerant towards all the multitude of flaws of this expansion (new "talents" and further dumbification of RPG part of game in general, dailies, lack of 5-men and so on).

And yet you ignore the increase in subs that greeted the expansion's release. Are you even aware of the sub numbers at the end of Cata compared to the first quarter rise at the start of MOP?

[ComputerNerd]

If pandaren were a reason for people to leave, then they should have done so with worgen, or hell they should have left before the end of vanilla due to tauren.
It is simply another bandwagon for people without a legitimate complaint.

[Mithfir]

When Chris Metzen, the guy behind Warcraft lore, has to say: "This is not a joke", it just confirms that they failed their first impression test.

And honestly now. Monks, Pandas, Farming daily, Pet battles. First thing that came to my mind was kung-fu panda meet farmville in pokémon. Compare that with the other expansions and to me it looks childish. And probably many others.

[ElvenArcher]

When Chris Metzen, the guy behind Warcraft lore, has to say: "This is not a joke", it just confirms that they failed their first impression test.

And honestly now. Monks, Pandas, Farming daily, Pet battles. First thing that came to my mind was kung-fu panda meet farmville in pokémon. Compare that with the other expansions and to me it looks childish. And probably many others.

100% of what this guy said except for the kung fu panda part. I hated crapdaren since their first useless appearance in Warcraft 3, I hated after they were announced for WoW, and I hate them now even more after experiencing their "lore" and "culture".

Pet battles and farming? Can't even say they bother me at all, since it's not something that spits on the lore, it's just side crap, like collecting mounts. Crapdaren though, they're just so out of place, even like Mithfir said, Metzen had to say "This is not a joke", and obviously we didn't buy it the third time either.

[BatteredRose]

I sincerely have deep and copious amounts of pity for anyone who quit because of that, also for those that think WoW has suddenly become childish because of recent additions to the game..