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  1. #1

    Player retention, a discussion

    Hi there folks,

    I've noticed that in these forums a lot of people are discussing older expansions vs. newer expansions and "how to save the game". Now before I start I want to point out that I personally believe in the product life cycle and I believe that WoW is ever so slowly dying, and at the end of the day nothing can be done about i inevitably ending at some point.

    But what can be done to stave off death?

    Well, in part Blizzard actually know this themselves, they have just failed miserably to adher to it, more frequent expansions, their numbers show a spike every time an expansion is released and since they do sell the expansion at almost full game price that is an excellent way of staying profitable. The downside to this in my personal opinion is that with WoD we saw the most expensive expansion to date sporting the fewest patches and least content to date. So I'd say this tactic might work, if they stick to the plan AND lower the price of the expansions which seems unlikely. So at the end of the day I am not a fan of that tactic.





    Here we have a graph of the subscription numbers through the ages of WoW. At first glance the obvious answer would be "Just go back to Vanilla / TBC" at even though the numbers are definitely rising this is mostly due to the game still being new and fresh and MMOs being the hottest game out there, neither of these things can be said anymore. Before we start on the post TBC expansions I want to look at some other numbers, according to an advertisement by Blizzard 100 million accounts had been through WoW by the time of their 10 year anniversary, this number is most likely inflated BUT it is the only solid number we have. Given the game is now 11 years old at 12 months per year that equals roughly 75k subscribers quitting every month, the number right now is 100k, so that's definitely a decrease in retention.

    Wrath of the Lich king

    Wrath of the Lich King is a bit more interesting, but I recon the influx of new players at this time is still very high, and the graphics still weren't super dated, although it was at this stage already pretty bad.

    Cataclysm

    Next up is Cata, Cata is the first expansion we see with a constant net loss of subscribers and also the largest net loss of subscribers, of any expansion (Although WoD could be a contender there). There are most likely several reasons for this drop, one of the biggest ones (I recon) is a lack of new players, the game is now 6 years old and it's beginning to show, attracting new players to a game that no longer is able to deliver proper MMO content below level cap is very hard. The leveling content itself there is nothing wrong with, this is obviously subjective, but even if it was poorly designed it doesn't address the core issue, leveling is at this point and time is a very lonely experience and forming lasting bonds while leveling is night impossible simply due to the lack of people actually doing it. A solution to this could be "megaservers" where all servers are merged in one region.

    Mist of Pandaria

    MoP was the next release (Full disclosure, this was my favorite expansion, having played since 2004, so there will be some bias here), this is the first time we see the subscriber jump in relation to a new expansion, after which we have the numbers slowly dropping off, but this is where MoP becomes a bit of an anomaly. In mid MoP there seem to be a period of time of 9-10 months where subscriber numbers are stable, bearing in mind the average of 75k subscribers leaving per month all of a sudden there is a time period where they don't lose subscribers for a long period of time. With Vanilla/TBC/Wotlk I "Blame" the stable numbers on MMOs still being the hot shit (Very soon to be displaced by Mobas) and therefore a high influx of new players. However, in the middle of Mists of Pandaria there seem to be no logical reason for a spike of new players coming in? It's mid expansion, the game is old and MMOs are no longer the hot stuff they used to be with Mobas invading the Video game industry.
    Later came the curse of Blizzard with a year of Patch 5.4 which is ofc never going to help any subscriber based game, I think it's safe to say that not releasing content for a year isn't a good idea.

    Warlods of Draenor

    Biggest sub jump yet!
    Now as this Expansion is still active and Blizzard have stopped releasing sub numbers it becomes increasingly hard to look at numbers (what little we had to work with anyway). But safe to say that it crashed pretty hard after the spike becoming the expansion to hemorrhage the most player to date, in terms of player retention Warlords is by far the worst, as a short term business Warlords was scary profitable, being the most expensive expansion to date delivering the highest sub jump to date is no small feat.

  2. #2
    I think WoW is moving more into the cycle of its life where it will be for its nitch community of a few million folks and a percentage of those will slide off each expansion. It will of course spike hard at the start of each expansion but spike down a month, two, or three after that. At least that is what I predict going forward. I have my doubts that it will truly die until a good while after Blizzard stops releasing content for it. But I have doubts it will ever be a steady 8+ million MMO again. Of course its speculation, but seems pretty reliable from my point of view.

  3. #3
    Just remember that player retention in the graph is a collection of anonymous players. Since over 100million have tried WoW, I sincerely doubt that all of the players are the same ones coming and going. It is totally possible that most 10 mil players who started off on WoD left and a whole new batch of 5 mill joined in WoD's timeframe.
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  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Hardkorr View Post
    Just remember that player retention in the graph is a collection of anonymous players. Since over 100million have tried WoW, I sincerely doubt that all of the players are the same ones coming and going. It is totally possible that most 10 mil players who started off on WoD left and a whole new batch of 5 mill joined in WoD's timeframe.
    Possible, absolutely, probable, not so much. Although WoD was marketed more aggresively than MoP was the marketing campaigns were mostly targeted at players already familiar with the franchise, with known characters/items from the games being the centerpieces of their marketing as opposed to for instance their celebrity ad campaign back from the Cata days where Mr. T plays a night elf mohawk.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Yggdrasil View Post
    I think WoW is moving more into the cycle of its life where it will be for its nitch community of a few million folks and a percentage of those will slide off each expansion. It will of course spike hard at the start of each expansion but spike down a month, two, or three after that. At least that is what I predict going forward. I have my doubts that it will truly die until a good while after Blizzard stops releasing content for it. But I have doubts it will ever be a steady 8+ million MMO again. Of course its speculation, but seems pretty reliable from my point of view.
    I agree, the game is dying and will never see it's "glory"(In terms of sub numbers) days again, which is my point exactly, that retention is now the name of the game, where I fear it will be churning out expansions due to the profit from the spikes

  5. #5
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    As long as the developers cannot solve the issue of how slow they are to develop content this will remain an issue. It is exacerbated greatly when the game overtly pushes everyone in PVE to raiding. It looks like they have some ideas for Legion but the inertia of a game that is entering its twelfth year is very difficult to overcome. Expansions are both new and not new. New things to see; not necessarily new things to do. Changing classes around seems to be one of their solutions but again, the inertia of players who are getting tired of relearning their classes every year and a half or so is also a problem.

    As well, you can't really talk about retention without talking about player churn. When signups greatly outnumber those leaving the game grows of course. But one may find early on in the game's lifetime that many more were not staying with the game than now. It was just masked because even more were joining. That era seems to be over.

    I disagree that the game is dying or even anywhere close to dead. Not with five million people paying for a subscription. A buy-to-play model or the inevitable free-to-play business model would probably bring many more back than the thirteen million that they had in their glory days. At this point it's not difficult to imagine that the $15/month is a very limiting factor on growth. Especially given the greater competition from titles that do not require said subscription.
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  6. #6
    Dreadlord High-Chief Greathoof's Avatar
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    Faster expansions produce less quality and quantity, meaning less players will be willing to try the next expansion. If Blizzard goes towards the "EXPANSIONS YEARLY," then the chart at the top goes flatline. I think Blizzard just needs to get back to the core of World of Warcraft: the Alliance versus the Horde, and big bad villains in-between. The biggest growth where expansions were already out and not just for the month of release were The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, both with iconic villains headlining (Illidan and Arthas, respectively). Legion is a step in the right direction, but Blizzard needs to keep going. Biannual expansions, iconic characters, developing storylines, tough villains, and the Alliance vs Horde war in full swing.

    I do believe World of Warcraft is losing subscriptions, however, but this is mainly due to the change in audience. Players that started playing World of Warcraft are eleven years older now, and players from the start of Warcraft have been around for twenty-one years! There are MILLIONS of newer players recently, and veteran players may had to put down WoW due to their changing lives (work, marriage, children, LIFE). Blizzard is trying a bit to go back to their iconic start in Warcraft III with the Burning Legion, but they need to evolve into a new era to survive as the playerbase changes. The only original expansion so far was Mists of Pandaria, and there was a decent overall reception for it (story-wise, nothing else). The game needs to evolve to survive the natural selection, or it will eventually die off and the next company that can hit the MMO market with the next big thing will have its time to rule.
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    As long as the developers cannot solve the issue of how slow they are to develop content this will remain an issue. It is exacerbated greatly when the game overtly pushes everyone in PVE to raiding. It looks like they have some ideas for Legion but the inertia of a game that is entering its twelfth year is very difficult to overcome. Expansions are both new and not new. New things to see; not necessarily new things to do. Changing classes around seems to be one of their solutions but again, the inertia of players who are getting tired of relearning their classes every year and a half or so is also a problem.

    As well, you can't really talk about retention without talking about player churn. When signups greatly outnumber those leaving the game grows of course. But one may find early on in the game's lifetime that many more were not staying with the game than now. It was just masked because even more were joining. That era seems to be over.

    I disagree that the game is dying or even anywhere close to dead. Not with five million people paying for a subscription. A buy-to-play model or the inevitable free-to-play business model would probably bring many more back than the thirteen million that they had in their glory days. At this point it's not difficult to imagine that the $15/month is a very limiting factor on growth. Especially given the greater competition from titles that do not require said subscription.
    If a F2P model rolls arounds (which I believe you are right, is inevitable) it sort of changes how we look at subs, we should be looking at player activity instead of subscribers then then, this would probably spike back the numbers with people thinking "why not" and reactivating their accounts but in terms of getting in new players I'm not convinced.

    And I agree with the churn, which is the reason I find the mid MoP era so fascinating, there were no obvious factors such as Release in another region (like wotlk being released in china with 2 years delay or the delayed release of the game in general in other regions), a marketing campaign or indeed a new expansion.

    In regards to the game no dying is an interesting notion, for that to be true you would have to attract new players, something Blizzard seems to be struggling with a lot right now, you say you don't believe it's a dying game and I'm gonna be a dick here and say that it's relative, we're all technically dying . But in all seriousness, to reinvigorate the game they need players, how would you attract new players to a game with such a massive build up as World of Warcraft?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Ebonsoul View Post
    Faster expansions produce less quality and quantity, meaning less players will be willing to try the next expansion. If Blizzard goes towards the "EXPANSIONS YEARLY," then the chart at the top goes flatline. I think Blizzard just needs to get back to the core of World of Warcraft: the Alliance versus the Horde, and big bad villains in-between. The biggest growth where expansions were already out and not just for the month of release were The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, both with iconic villains headlining (Illidan and Arthas, respectively). Legion is a step in the right direction, but Blizzard needs to keep going. Biannual expansions, iconic characters, developing storylines, tough villains, and the Alliance vs Horde war in full swing.
    Growth was indeed seen during these two expansions and I thoroughly agree that what they need to to is bring back the Icons, however, they did try this with WoD (and I personally think they botched it nicely). But I feel I have to point out that the growth seen in those early expansions was also largely caused by the fact that it was still a new-ish game and easier to start and the fact that MMOs were one of the more popular game genres at the time neither of which is the case anymore.

  8. #8
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lillemus View Post
    In regards to the game no dying is an interesting notion, for that to be true you would have to attract new players, something Blizzard seems to be struggling with a lot right now, you say you don't believe it's a dying game and I'm gonna be a dick here and say that it's relative, we're all technically dying . But in all seriousness, to reinvigorate the game they need players, how would you attract new players to a game with such a massive build up as World of Warcraft?
    I don't think they can with the subscription model in place just to put it as bluntly as possible. We won't probably know anything about subscriptions in the future anyway so how the game feels is going to be one yardstick by which some sort of judgment can be made. That depends a lot on what you do and what realm you're doing it on so can be pretty personal.

    They really need to think about a better social model though. The one they use now is really all about your friends and the one, single guild that your character can belong to. That needs to be loosened up considerably to encourage larger social groups like communities and get rid of the monogamous relationship to your 'group' altogether.
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  9. #9
    Herald of the Titans Daffan's Avatar
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    People say it has to do with content, there is a lot of content in WoD. Just 90% is made obsolete by skip/catchup mechanics before average player even has a chance to do it normally, therefore it's essentially useless for them and they have nothing to progress but HFC.
    Content drought is a combination of catchup mechanics and no new content.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Lillemus View Post
    Hi there folks,

    I've noticed that in these forums a lot of people are discussing older expansions vs. newer expansions and "how to save the game". Now before I start I want to point out that I personally believe in the product life cycle and I believe that WoW is ever so slowly dying, and at the end of the day nothing can be done about i inevitably ending at some point.

    But what can be done to stave off death?

    Well, in part Blizzard actually know this themselves, they have just failed miserably to adher to it, more frequent expansions, their numbers show a spike every time an expansion is released and since they do sell the expansion at almost full game price that is an excellent way of staying profitable. The downside to this in my personal opinion is that with WoD we saw the most expensive expansion to date sporting the fewest patches and least content to date. So I'd say this tactic might work, if they stick to the plan AND lower the price of the expansions which seems unlikely. So at the end of the day I am not a fan of that tactic.





    Here we have a graph of the subscription numbers through the ages of WoW. At first glance the obvious answer would be "Just go back to Vanilla / TBC" at even though the numbers are definitely rising this is mostly due to the game still being new and fresh and MMOs being the hottest game out there, neither of these things can be said anymore. Before we start on the post TBC expansions I want to look at some other numbers, according to an advertisement by Blizzard 100 million accounts had been through WoW by the time of their 10 year anniversary, this number is most likely inflated BUT it is the only solid number we have. Given the game is now 11 years old at 12 months per year that equals roughly 75k subscribers quitting every month, the number right now is 100k, so that's definitely a decrease in retention.

    Wrath of the Lich king

    Wrath of the Lich King is a bit more interesting, but I recon the influx of new players at this time is still very high, and the graphics still weren't super dated, although it was at this stage already pretty bad.

    Cataclysm

    Next up is Cata, Cata is the first expansion we see with a constant net loss of subscribers and also the largest net loss of subscribers, of any expansion (Although WoD could be a contender there). There are most likely several reasons for this drop, one of the biggest ones (I recon) is a lack of new players, the game is now 6 years old and it's beginning to show, attracting new players to a game that no longer is able to deliver proper MMO content below level cap is very hard. The leveling content itself there is nothing wrong with, this is obviously subjective, but even if it was poorly designed it doesn't address the core issue, leveling is at this point and time is a very lonely experience and forming lasting bonds while leveling is night impossible simply due to the lack of people actually doing it. A solution to this could be "megaservers" where all servers are merged in one region.

    Mist of Pandaria

    MoP was the next release (Full disclosure, this was my favorite expansion, having played since 2004, so there will be some bias here), this is the first time we see the subscriber jump in relation to a new expansion, after which we have the numbers slowly dropping off, but this is where MoP becomes a bit of an anomaly. In mid MoP there seem to be a period of time of 9-10 months where subscriber numbers are stable, bearing in mind the average of 75k subscribers leaving per month all of a sudden there is a time period where they don't lose subscribers for a long period of time. With Vanilla/TBC/Wotlk I "Blame" the stable numbers on MMOs still being the hot shit (Very soon to be displaced by Mobas) and therefore a high influx of new players. However, in the middle of Mists of Pandaria there seem to be no logical reason for a spike of new players coming in? It's mid expansion, the game is old and MMOs are no longer the hot stuff they used to be with Mobas invading the Video game industry.
    Later came the curse of Blizzard with a year of Patch 5.4 which is ofc never going to help any subscriber based game, I think it's safe to say that not releasing content for a year isn't a good idea.

    Warlods of Draenor

    Biggest sub jump yet!
    Now as this Expansion is still active and Blizzard have stopped releasing sub numbers it becomes increasingly hard to look at numbers (what little we had to work with anyway). But safe to say that it crashed pretty hard after the spike becoming the expansion to hemorrhage the most player to date, in terms of player retention Warlords is by far the worst, as a short term business Warlords was scary profitable, being the most expensive expansion to date delivering the highest sub jump to date is no small feat.
    The only numbers that matter here are ones concerning subscriber churn. Concurrent subscriptions have never told the whole story. By the end of Wrath 100 million people have played and quit Wow. A good example of why this matters happened at Wod launch when subscriptions went up 3 million and then we ended up losing 5 million by the end of Wod. Which people came back? Which ones stayed? It is asinine to assume the exact same 3 million who came back were the exact same ones who left just as it is asinine to assume the 12 million we had during Wrath were always the same exact 12 million. If there is/was a problem with Wow, any honest examination of it should start with that and only that and stop prattling on and on about how Blizzard is killing Wow now. These threads serve no purpose and only benefit the usual hater circle jerks which the mods allow far too much of as it is.
    Last edited by xanzul; 2016-01-20 at 02:01 AM.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    I think they should try something new.
    Timeless Isle was such a good inovation to the genre if it could be polished a bit more.

    Let's just see how good the scaling of Heroic Dungeons, Class Hall quests and farm for world legendaries will be.

    I'm hoping Class Hall quests and legendary farming will bring everyone to the world. Not sure if it will be true.
    Massice world events are also fun for a MMO. Something that i think is lacking in WoW.

    The PvP in Legion seems amazing. There is motivation to get higher arena rating for the first time in years.
    You can only get armor with rating so if you enjoy world pvp and duels you will have to farm Legendaries and rating.
    Seems good on paper for player retention, at least for PvP.
    Last edited by mmocaf0660f03c; 2016-01-20 at 02:07 AM.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Lillemus View Post
    Possible, absolutely, probable, not so much. Although WoD was marketed more aggresively than MoP was the marketing campaigns were mostly targeted at players already familiar with the franchise, with known characters/items from the games being the centerpieces of their marketing as opposed to for instance their celebrity ad campaign back from the Cata days where Mr. T plays a night elf mohawk.

    - - - Updated - - -



    I agree, the game is dying and will never see it's "glory"(In terms of sub numbers) days again, which is my point exactly, that retention is now the name of the game, where I fear it will be churning out expansions due to the profit from the spikes
    So basically you will consider only your premise and no one else's despite all the ample evidence from multiple sources that there has been significant subscriber churn over the years? Thought so. Mods can we lock this up? Blizzard is no longer going to provide subscription numbers and none of these threads have had anything posted in them that hasn't been said a million times before. It is just more of the usual hater spam and propaganda and no room for any actual discussion.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    I don't think they can with the subscription model in place just to put it as bluntly as possible. We won't probably know anything about subscriptions in the future anyway so how the game feels is going to be one yardstick by which some sort of judgment can be made. That depends a lot on what you do and what realm you're doing it on so can be pretty personal.

    They really need to think about a better social model though. The one they use now is really all about your friends and the one, single guild that your character can belong to. That needs to be loosened up considerably to encourage larger social groups like communities and get rid of the monogamous relationship to your 'group' altogether.
    Blizzard isn't responsible for creating communities for us. The players have always done that and done it better than Blizzard ever could. Openraid.us is an excellent example of a player made community not to mention all the smaller ones that popped up to help non-raiders get their moose mount.
    Last edited by xanzul; 2016-01-20 at 02:12 AM.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by xanzul View Post
    The only numbers that matter here are ones concerning subscriber churn. Concurrent subscriptions have never told the whole story. By the end of Wrath 100 million people have played and quit Wow. A good example of why this matters happened at Wod launch when subscriptions went up 3 million and then we ended up losing 5 million by the end of Wod. Which people came back? Which ones stayed? It is asinine to assume the exact same 3 million who came back were the exact same ones who left just as it is asinine to assume the 12 million we had during Wrath were always the same exact 12 million. If there is/was a problem with Wow, any honest examination of it should start with that and only that and stop prattling on and on about how Blizzard is killing Wow now. These threads serve no purpose and only benefit the usual hater circle jerks which the mods allow far too much of as it is.
    Not sure if you read my entire post, but for good reasons I skirted over Vanilla/TBC/Wotlk I'm not sure where you get from my post that I assume that it's the same 12 million playing in Wotlk from start to finish, I literally point out that the avg sub loss per month is 75k through ALL of WoW meaning that during vanilla/TBC/wotlk the sub gain was just higher.
    Furthermore this is more of a counterpost to people claiming that if we just bring back TBC / wotlk all will be well again because sub were rising during that time period, I thoroughly disagree with that, they were rising because of the fact that it was a newer game and MMOs were more popular at the time.
    I later point out that the most interesting time on this graph is actually MoP since there is no outside factors (release in a different region, new expansion, heavy marketing campaign) for sub numbers to stay stable at this time, so Blizzard must have done something very right or it was just 10 months of pure dumb luck. I am trying to shift the focus to the churn here and retention as opposed to the statement that TBC and wotlk were godlike because rise and subs and highest sub numbers.
    I firmly believe that introducing new people to WoW gets harder every day due to the sheer size of WoW, it's just too daunting for someone who's never played it, so retention is the name of the game, and the best time period to long at for that is mid MoP. To a certain extent I'm even looking for answers here, WHY did the sub numbers not drop during mid MoP?

  14. #14
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by xanzul View Post
    Blizzard isn't responsible for creating communities for us. The players have always done that and done it better than Blizzard ever could. Openraid.us is an excellent example of a player made community not to mention all the smaller ones that popped up to help non-raiders get their moose mount.
    In-game communities are important. Communities based on external web sites are fine but that doesn't mean that there's no reason to pay any attention to it for those that would prefer to find ways to socialize in the game itself.
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  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Daffan View Post
    People say it has to do with content, there is a lot of content in WoD. Just 90% is made obsolete by skip/catchup mechanics before average player even has a chance to do it normally, therefore it's essentially useless for them and they have nothing to progress but HFC.
    Content was made irrelevant with catch up mechanics in MoP as well, they didn't lose any subs (despite the fact that they should have been dropping) - so the steep drop in WoD cannot be partly, if at all, blamed on these mechanics.

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    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    I don't think they can with the subscription model in place just to put it as bluntly as possible. We won't probably know anything about subscriptions in the future anyway so how the game feels is going to be one yardstick by which some sort of judgment can be made. That depends a lot on what you do and what realm you're doing it on so can be pretty personal.

    They really need to think about a better social model though. The one they use now is really all about your friends and the one, single guild that your character can belong to. That needs to be loosened up considerably to encourage larger social groups like communities and get rid of the monogamous relationship to your 'group' altogether.
    Well, let's assume they go F2P in the expansion after Legion, personally I think going F2P alongside an expansion release would be the best way to garner interest, but how would they handle new players? level boosts? Megaservers?

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Lillemus View Post
    But what can be done to stave off death?
    I think the best thing they can do is remove this "you can skip the rest of the expac's content if you want, just play the patch" idea. Vanilla and TBC experienced the strongest growths and I think that is because the game's content had more longevity. Outside of being carried, you didn't really get a chance to outright skip content until 2.4.

    You should need to conquer Highmaul to go to Blackrock Foundry. You should need to conquer Blackrock Foundry to get to Hellfire Citadel. In the current iteration of the game, there's no reason to go to Normal+ Highmaul beyond lolachievements and Normal+ BRF beyond achievements and the Blackhand mount. Even the LFR difficulties are artificially propped up using Valor; nobody would touch it more than once if it didn't have Legendary components or Valor.
    If you are particularly bold, you could use a Shiny Ditto. Do keep in mind though, this will infuriate your opponents due to Ditto's beauty. Please do not use Shiny Ditto. You have been warned.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by xanzul View Post
    Blizzard isn't responsible for creating communities for us. The players have always done that and done it better than Blizzard ever could. Openraid.us is an excellent example of a player made community not to mention all the smaller ones that popped up to help non-raiders get their moose mount.
    This might be wrong, but wouldn't a out of game community be detrimental in the cases of new players, if the community does not come as a natural in game part of the experience there is a risk they'll never look around and learn about sites such as openraid.us. So Blizzard does have an interest in creating communities, and at the end of the day, Blizzard are very good at spotting a good idea from an add-on or external site, polishing that idea and then implementing it into the game, so nothing should be stopping them from doing it with community based external sites as well.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by LilSaihah View Post
    I think the best thing they can do is remove this "you can skip the rest of the expac's content if you want, just play the patch" idea. Vanilla and TBC experienced the strongest growths and I think that is because the game's content had more longevity. Outside of being carried, you didn't really get a chance to outright skip content until 2.4.

    You should need to conquer Highmaul to go to Blackrock Foundry. You should need to conquer Blackrock Foundry to get to Hellfire Citadel. In the current iteration of the game, there's no reason to go to Normal+ Highmaul beyond lolachievements and Normal+ BRF beyond achievements and the Blackhand mount. Even the LFR difficulties are artificially propped up using Valor; nobody would touch it more than once if it didn't have Legendary components or Valor.
    Nope, gonna be a dick and flat out deny that, numbers were rising in TBC because more new players started. Mid MoP had catch up mechanics and broke the trend of Cata and early MoP with sub losses

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Lillemus View Post
    Nope, gonna be a dick and flat out deny that, numbers were rising in TBC because more new players started.
    ...Duh? The problem isn't getting players to start playing the game, whether new or returning; the numbers at the start of WoD proved that. The problem is convincing them to stay. Those Vanilla and TBC structures, judging by the data, seem to have either encouraged players to stay, or churned all new players (in which case the discussion is moot because there is no way to re-new a player).

    Quote Originally Posted by Lillemus View Post
    Mid MoP had catch up mechanics and broke the trend of Cata and early MoP with sub losses
    Compare that to other patches with catchup mechanics; end of TBC had steady trend, Wrath of the Lich King numbers barely budged ever, Cata's catchup mechanics didn't break the downwards trend. I don't believe there's any clear evidence that catchup mechanics have an influence on population trends; if anything, I'm likely to chalk up the ToT bump to ToT being a good patch with broad content. Frankly, I thought having good patches with broad content didn't need to be stated.
    Last edited by LilSaihah; 2016-01-20 at 02:54 AM.
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  19. #19
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lillemus View Post
    Well, let's assume they go F2P in the expansion after Legion, personally I think going F2P alongside an expansion release would be the best way to garner interest, but how would they handle new players? level boosts? Megaservers?
    They have realms to spare. They rarely actually turn off a realm and they can spawn virtual realms pretty much at will now thanks to what they discovered at the start of Warlords. It's an interesting question about boosts and F2P. There are lots of F2P/B2P models. In fact I don't see WoW ever going full F2P. I can easily imagine no subscription and B2P for expansions though. That's very nearly where they are now given tokens.

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    I'll also add this. The Holy Grail for content is making a toolbox for players to create their own, perhaps contained in a scenario software wrapper. Give players that and a system for getting the best of that content integrated into the game and I think you're looking at a whole new game. Maybe a better one too. What player generated content has done for SC is just a hint at what something like that could do for WoW. Integrating the best stuff in would be the most difficult thing over the long run.
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    They have realms to spare. They rarely actually turn off a realm and they can spawn virtual realms pretty much at will now thanks to what they discovered at the start of Warlords. It's an interesting question about boosts and F2P. There are lots of F2P/B2P models. In fact I don't see WoW ever going full F2P. I can easily imagine no subscription and B2P for expansions though. That's very nearly where they are now given tokens.
    I am not a smart man, I was thinking F2P in the sense that they would just remove subscription and then charge for expansions which is very much not F2P but B2P. And I'm not worried about them not having enough serverspace for newer players, I'm assuming they don't just outright bin hardware everytime they lose subscribers . It is more the idea of getting them into the game that I am worried about for new players, due to WoW's size.

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    Quote Originally Posted by LilSaihah View Post
    ...Duh? The problem isn't getting players to start playing the game, whether new or returning; the numbers at the start of WoD proved that. The problem is convincing them to stay. Those Vanilla and TBC structures, judging by the data, seem to have either encouraged players to stay, or churned all new players (in which case the discussion is moot because there is no way to re-new a player).



    Compare that to other patches with catchup mechanics; end of TBC had steady trend, Wrath of the Lich King numbers barely budged ever, Cata's catchup mechanics didn't break the downwards trend. I don't believe there's any clear evidence that catchup mechanics have an influence on population trends; if anything, I'm likely to chalk up the ToT bump to ToT being a good patch with broad content. Frankly, I thought having good patches with broad content didn't need to be stated.
    Well, personally I enjoyed all the content in MoP, but we could just chalk the stability of that period down to ToT.

    You were the one who said we needed to bring back tiered unskippable content like in TBC as the solution, if catchup mechanics don't affect numbers then why did you bring this up? But regardless for that we need a large influx of new players, which there simply isn't right now. Maybe the solution could be going B2P and tiered content.
    Last edited by Lillemus; 2016-01-20 at 03:03 AM.

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