Guilds dying ? Less people playing lately

[Zorachus]

I've been playing WoW since launch, and over the years, there have been droughts, and low population times in between expansions, but right now it seems pretty bad from my little sample size.

I play on two different full population servers, Zul'Jin and Daralan, and have both Horde and Alliance characters on both servers, and I am in four very large Guilds. Horde and Alliance Guild's on each server.

- First off both BfA Faction cities on each server I'm on, lately seem very less populated, like extremely quiet the past month.

- And the Guild's I am in. At BfA launch all four Guilds were packed with players, always like 30+ players on a weeknight, everyday. Lately only 1 or 2 players, or just me. And I've been in all these Guilds since Legion, and even during Legion's slow times, there were at least a dozen or so people on usually. But now these Guild's feel like ghost towns. Which is strange as I've been in them for 3+ years, and they've always had a healthy player base on.

- When does 8.2 come out? Seems this game needs an injection to get players back A.S.A.P.

[Onikaroshi]

There hasn't been anything to do for quite awhile, most guild are basically ignoring the 2 boss raid, it's like a mid expansion drought.

[Poppen]

feels like BFA has been out years already

[rrayy]

I've been playing WoW since launch, and over the years, there have been droughts, and low population times in between expansions, but right now it seems pretty bad from my little sample size.

I play on two different full population servers, Zul'Jin and Daralan, and have both Horde and Alliance characters on both servers, and I am in four very large Guilds. Horde and Alliance Guild's on each server.

- First off both BfA Faction cities on each server I'm on, lately seem very less populated, like extremely quiet the past month.

- And the Guild's I am in. At BfA launch all four Guilds were packed with players, always like 30+ players on a weeknight, everyday. Lately only 1 or 2 players, or just me. And I've been in all these Guilds since Legion, and even during Legion's slow times, there were at least a dozen or so people on usually. But now these Guild's feel like ghost towns. Which is strange as I've been in them for 3+ years, and they've always had a healthy player base on.

- When does 8.2 come out? Seems this game needs an injection to get players back A.S.A.P.

Funny, I still see players all over the place when I play on my realms. That is why you should not make any conclusions from small sample sizes. Because different people have different experiences.

[Alvito]

Phasing is some of it. Servers are split between WM and pve on top of phasing beyond that. PVE content has fizzled out for many. The lost of single reward chores has pushed some away. BfA just hasn't added much that is new or compelling. Travel from island to island is a hassle. They tried to build on things they liked about Legion and in almost all cases made them worse. One of Legions strengths was content guving multiple rewards even if they were very small. With that you had reasons for people of all walks of life and play styles to interact. Take pvp tower WQ as an example. You could get some pvp, you would get 2 types of rep, the reward for the WQ, the chance at legendary drops, honor which on its own gave gold, ap, xmog, toys mounts, titles. The AP grind is worse now. Azerite gear is a mess and due to the nature of specs traits can be a nightmare to deal with. The loss of abilities isn't helping either. There are just so many dull choices and far too much rng. One of my characters has 12 or 13 things that are completely out of my control that might proc or might not. This makes for massive swings in output and leaves players guessing if they are doing well far too often.

- - - Updated - - -

feels like BFA has been out years already

Yet it hasn't even been one. I know I couldn't be much more disappointed with PVE than I am and from the looks the next raid doesn't look like much fun. BoD was okay for a week or two, in mythic it is one of my least favorite raids since HoF though. CoS is hot garbage. Maybe the next expansion will be fun and right the ship.

[Daedius]

Sorry for contributing to this, stopped playing WoW;

--- snip ---

[Seylene]

I still see a lot of people but not the big guilds out anymore. This isn't a big deal per say but i'm on a RP realm and most of the big guilds are the source for that, I know a lot of the NE guilds have basically retired with tentative returns if things get sorted out especially vis a vie a new capital. I know it's only a subset of both guilds, and the server population but as I write for 3 of the big ones I can say its about an 80% drop. That being said again RP server so the story is more important I would wager quite a few horde guilds are seeing similar malaise.

[Frosteye]

Game definitely feels empty right now. I subbed a wow-token and it's a freaking ghost town everywhere.

Honestly, after the excitement of Legion, there hasn't been anything in BFA so far that has piqued my interest/excitement. I could care less about Mechagon.

[Onikaroshi]

I still see a lot of people but not the big guilds out anymore. This isn't a big deal per say but i'm on a RP realm and most of the big guilds are the source for that, I know a lot of the NE guilds have basically retired with tentative returns if things get sorted out especially vis a vie a new capital. I know it's only a subset of both guilds, and the server population but as I write for 3 of the big ones I can say its about an 80% drop. That being said again RP server so the story is more important I would wager quite a few horde guilds are seeing similar malaise.

I can see that, there's mishandling all over the story, they can't decide what to do. They started with a faction war full on knowing that it isn't something they can continue because you can't have a side win a faction war in an MMO with players on both sides... and then they had a first raid that only one side saw the story of and a brewing old god story that only the other side saw the story of... it's a damn mess.

[Zorachus]

Even /2 trade chat is quiet on both servers. Usually it's a nonstop scrolling of comments, but even now, I'll sit in the city, and wait to see trade chat talk, and there's periods of no chat for 30 seconds to a minute at a time, which is unheard of.

And just looking around the two new Faction BfA cities, there are absolutely less players running around compared to just a few months ago right after 8.1.5

[Hubbl3]

feels like BFA has been out years already

And there isn't really coming anything exciting up except for a new raid (and that's only for raiders).

[Alvito]

And there isn't really coming anything exciting up except for a new raid (and that's only for raiders).

The 2 new zones and all they offer will be here soon. That will keep some people happy and busy for awhile. The current and next raid are and look like junk though. Raiding isn't in a good place currently.

[Maljinwo]

Weird. My realm is pretty active, even got 8 new guild members these last 2 weeks.

[Hubbl3]

The 2 new zones and all they offer will be here soon. That will keep some people happy and busy for awhile. The current and next raid are and look like junk though. Raiding isn't in a good place currently.

IDK; right now Nazjatar isn't really offering much. For me, at least.

[Onikaroshi]

IDK; right now Nazjatar isn't really offering much. For me, at least.

Then that's a you problem, 8.2 offers a good amount for "non-raiders"

[Soon-TM]

All I can say is that my entire guild of 30-and-odd people has unsubbed months ago. We will probably give 8.2 a try, but at least to me, Nazjatar looks very underwhelming so far... and those raid sets from EP are ugly as sin.

[Hubbl3]

Then that's a you problem, 8.2 offers a good amount for "non-raiders"

Yes, of course it's my problem. If you or other people are looking forward and having fun: good

[Jujudrood]

The problem is that core features upon which they heavily relied fell flat.
Warfronts are snoozefests, Expeditions are rather monotonous for no real reward, Azerite Gear is, well, what it is, and other gear is far too available and far too powerful that there's really no "work" to put into it, aside from a few hours a week (unless you are fishing for WF/TF which is fully out of your control).

Because there's really no need to push playtime (even M+, you can get decked out in a week or two of playing), people find other things to do until it's time to raid.
Those other things happen to be not in-game because nothing in-game fills that gap.
With 8.2 and eventually Azshara raid, people will come back, but without a true long-term goal to which they can strive, they will disappear again.
I mean, even the new currency/gear model they have in Nazjatar/Mechagon, people who don't raid will have nearly a full Heroic raid-quality set in about 2 months (assuming they also do other non-raid activity that reward items far too powerful for the content from which they are rewarded, like Warfronts and such).

I guess the TL;DR is: There is nothing fun enough to hook people and the carrot on the stick is not very enticing.

[therealbowser]

IDK; right now Nazjatar isn't really offering much. For me, at least.

I mean I can understand that BFA feels boring but there is a ton of diverse content coming in the next patch. To say "The only thing in the next patch is the new raid" is just ridiculously inaccurate.

I mean, I'm excited about mechagon, but what I'm really interested in is the new epic 5 man dungeon that will play out like Karazhan did. That's a big deal.

[Wolfrick]

I don*t think its has to do with people leavilng or that some few people think BFA is the worst Expansion ever!!! if you ask me I love BFA and it is on of the greatest expansion I have ever played (I am a vanilla player since 2005)

THe reason why so many guild gets lost is because now days... guild means close to nothing.... there are no Guild housing... every item you can buy in the guild vendor is like any other vendor... the items are not bound to the guild but to you...

and there is close to no consequence when it comes to leaving a guild... since with the sharing system... people never bump into eachothers...

Best things that Could happen,

Make a Guild Garrison/house -
Make the Guild vendor items Bind to the guild... so if you leave a guild and join another one you lose the items...
Make guild give you something cool or some interesting stuff "skills/perks/or something else"
Make it so that when you leave a guild, you get a deebuf of 7 days before you can join another guild... "if you are kicked that does give you a debuf of 4" or something like that.

Open for more ideas that could make guild important again