Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[Daemos daemonium]

Your point of view and my point of view don't share the same timelines. You're looking at the Q4 report which accounts the first 1-2 months of Shadowlands. I'm talking about the situation right now, so the decline can very well be steeper than the one after WoD / BfA - we officially just don't know yet, so it's an assumption. Q1/21 has nothing to boost their numbers, plus the delayed 9.1 - I'm curious how bad they're doing at the moment. And if TBC doesn't launch in June (and neither 9.1), Q2/21 will be a disaster for them financially with absolutely nothing to boost their numbers. But I'm optimistic that they'll launc TBC in May and June to counter the massive drop of retail.

Your original post that I quoted says what time frame you meant In it.

I think even WoD managed to have a less steep decline because BRF came 2.5 months after release and people were busy by that.

If you want to say that post is wrong but the next quarter could be steeper then wod or BFA then sure it’s possible.

[Super Kami Dende]

Both ff14 build on your character rather than take away. Expansions build you up and the world up rather than shrink it and turn it into Diablo 3 seasons the mmorpg

Oh please, do tell how FF14 does anything different to how WoW does.

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That's just natural gear progression. But you don't lose entire game systems or half your toolkit. Pretending it is similar to artifact weapons is disingenuous at best.

Artifact Weapons were just new gear progression systems. FF14 literally has no customization in your Job abilities. All you have is the gear treadmill. often culminating in just 1 relic weapon you upgrade til the end of an expac then rinse repeat for the next expac.

FFXIV is hardly a masterpiece when it comes to character growth. Also, I lost parts of my Toolkit coming into the latest FFXIV expac with their ability prune, so that's just plain disingenuous yourself.

[Nyel]

Oh please, do tell how FF14 does anything different to how WoW does.

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Artifact Weapons were just new gear progression systems. FF14 literally has no customization in your Job abilities. All you have is the gear treadmill. often culminating in just 1 relic weapon you upgrade til the end of an expac then rinse repeat for the next expac.

FFXIV is hardly a masterpiece when it comes to character growth. Also, I lost parts of my Toolkit coming into the latest FFXIV expac with their ability prune, so that's just plain disingenuous yourself.

Artifact weapons were the entire class progression system for Legion. So was Azerite in BfA and so is Covenants in Shadowlands - and all of it gets eventually removed, we might keep 10% of the stuff introduced as a new talent or whatever, but the overwhelming amount of progress we made in each of those three expansions is thrown out the window at their end.

On top of losing that, Blizzard regularly prunes classes and their skills (just to bring some of it back as it happened in Shadowlands, unfortunately most of it was utter trash).

Blizzard's character progression system since Legion is completely bonkers.

[Wangming]

FFXIV is hardly a masterpiece when it comes to character growth. Also, I lost parts of my Toolkit coming into the latest FFXIV expac with their ability prune, so that's just plain disingenuous yourself.

Maybe, but it doesn't have to be to outclass the travesty that is current retail WoW.

[Necrosaro123]

Fluff talk. The next financial report is coming and TBC isn't there yet to make it look better than it is. Expecting Shadowlands to do better than the last expansions, especially with the massive delay of 9.1, is pretty optimistic.

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I don't agree that Shadowlands has less systems as it's just not the case. Shadowlands has a ton of systems build into just one system that are mostly useless or just not fun. That's the biggest problem here. You as a Warlock are not using your Covenant ability -> design fail, as your signature Covenant ability should be mandatory in your rotation. I already wrote that in my other post, so not going to repeat myself here.

Systems that are useless don't help anyone. People will just leave them alone and the development time is pretty much wasted. Warfronts come to my mind which had the same fate, Islands not so much as Torghast is basically exactly that.

Legions had systems, but did (most of) them better. And they were more fun and had more purpose than all the mini games right now. That's a point we don't have to disagree one, but Legion for sure is the more well-received expansion overall (yes, I can already say that). Legion had its problems (AP grind in the beginning, random legendaries), but where it succeeded, it was excellent.

All the systems that Shadowlands have are just re-used systems from past expansions. Nothing new. Torghast? Is just a scenario, Mission table again, Vault used to be a chest in BFA, Soulbind is just passives with a selection screen using Garrison panels and Anima (You like it or not) is just Azerithe.....again, just this time is used to upgrade Class Hall sets. Legendaries are even worst now, because you depend on getting the special effect you want from certain place and still YOU HAVE TO create the item with Soul Ash to craft it.

I dont know why the OP called this "Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity", because i dont see other friends of mine playing it. Instead, they moved to ElderScrolls Online.

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Maybe, but it doesn't have to be to outclass the travesty that is current retail WoW.

By the way, i have been playing lately Paladin, Deathknight Hunter and Warrior, and i feel that these classes did not change at all since BFA. They only gave use useless spells from other specs just to call it "diverse", but it actually make it confusing. I don't like at all and i think these changes are just lazy

[Incitatus]

I must be in the minority here as this is the first expansion that I have stopped playing since starting in 1.7.

[Osmeric]

Welp, this thread didn't age very well did it?

Aged like fine milk.

[Necrosaro123]

Aged like fine milk.

You let milk age?

[Wangming]

You let milk age?

I do. I call it cheese. There's this crazy dude over in Tamriel who can't get enough of the stuff.

[Necrosaro123]

I do. I call it cheese. There's this crazy dude over in Tamriel who can't get enough of the stuff.

Btw....i think that guy already left the company right?.....(for real, im not sure if he left or not, since so many of the original devs already left the game time ago...)

[Wangming]

Btw....i think that guy already left the company right?.....(for real, im not sure if he left or not, since so many of the original devs already left the game time ago...)

Yeah, he left. But the guy who took his place has the same face and even looks like him,so it's all good.

[Osmeric]

You let milk age?

Not intentionally.

[Necrosaro123]

Yeah, he left. But the guy who took his place has the same face and even looks like him,so it's all good.

Well, now we know why they dont have money for Devs.....THEY INVESTED IN CLONING TECHNOLOGY!

Now, the real problem here is both the endgame and the lore of Shadowlands. I don't know if you guys agree with me, but it doesn't look like Shadowlands is going to last past "Chains of Dominations" + "Another Patch". It looks like this expansion is going to be a short one.

[ro9ue]

Well, now we know why they dont have money for Devs.....THEY INVESTED IN CLONING TECHNOLOGY!

Now, the real problem here is both the endgame and the lore of Shadowlands. I don't know if you guys agree with me, but it doesn't look like Shadowlands is going to last past "Chains of Dominations" + "Another Patch". It looks like this expansion is going to be a short one.

I'm hoping to see way more from datamining PTR than they talked about at Blizzconline. If 9.1 is pretty much what we've already seen, WoW is a dead game, at least to me, for the remainder of 2021 assuming a 9.2 wouldn't release until Dec/Jan.

[Wangming]

I'm hoping to see way more from datamining PTR than they talked about at Blizzconline. If 9.1 is pretty much what we've already seen, WoW is a dead game, at least to me, for the remainder of 2021 assuming a 9.2 wouldn't release until Dec/Jan.

So what's your poison till 10.0? GW2?

[crusadernero]

I must be in the minority here as this is the first expansion that I have stopped playing since starting in 1.7.

I have played since vanilla and the only other xpac I really didnt play was WoD. I got the same feeling now as back then. Really great at the first couple of months, then quickly down the shitter.

Luckily theres no reason to actually play SL right now, unless you want to get really bored and hate the game. Theres nothing there and we are months away from 9.1. I'll take a longer break, return for 9.1 and see whats up. If its bad, a 1 month sub is enough.

[sam86]

SL started strong: that's fact
But also fact it is starting a bleeding wheel with the obvious long drought we are facing

[Dracullus]

I'm hoping to see way more from datamining PTR than they talked about at Blizzconline. If 9.1 is pretty much what we've already seen, WoW is a dead game, at least to me, for the remainder of 2021 assuming a 9.2 wouldn't release until Dec/Jan.

So if next patch will bring new world content, more story, 10-boss raid, 8-boss dungeon that will last ~6 months WoW is dead game for you. Cool story bro.

[Lahis]

So if next patch will bring new world content, more story, 10-boss raid, 8-boss dungeon that will last ~6 months WoW is dead game for you. Cool story bro.

The next .1 patch comes when .2 or even .3 should be coming out. Never before has .0 patch lasted for two thirds of a year.

[Wangming]

So if next patch will bring new world content, more story, 10-boss raid, 8-boss dungeon that will last ~6 months WoW is dead game for you. Cool story bro.

Well if he finds the world and the story uninteresting, that won't hold him for long. Nor should it.