View Poll Results: Did retail WoW just hit rock bottom?

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  • Yes

    26 48.15%
  • No

    19 35.19%
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    9 16.67%
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  1. #1

    Did retail WoW just hit rock bottom?

    Title.

    Is the recent state of retail World of Warcraft the worst the game has ever been? Is Shadowlands (9.1) the lowest point of retail WoW‘s history?

    Lawsuit and Cosby Suite left aside, it seems like WoW has lost more content creators and players in Shadowlands than ever before. Players are disgruntled, outraged, angry, by the gameplay, the systems and the story. The only thing admired about retail WoW right now just seems to be the art and the music.

    After having seen Preach‘s farewell video and looked up some of the fallout Shadowlands has created in the WoW universe, it seems like WoW hit rock bottom with light speed over the span of just a few months. Was there a point in WoW‘s lifetime where the game was in a worse state, gameplay wise, lore wise, reputation wise? What’s your take on this?
    MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again

  2. #2
    Immortal Nnyco's Avatar
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    Arent wow is dead threads forbidden?
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Crabs have been removed from the game... because if I see another one I’m just going to totally lose it. *sobbing* I’m sorry, I just can’t right now... I just... OK just give me a minute, I’ll be OK..

  3. #3
    If it was for this forum the game hit the rock button for a decade now. No one remembers the shit ton of hate that MoP received with the asian theme and all the panda stories? Or how WoD was received? Did you forget WOD?!?! Or the first year of Legion 'till they fixed the broken legendary system? Reddit was a memefest for months and months.

    So no, the 8 months content drought was bad, but everything else is pretty decent with SL.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Clozer View Post
    If it was for this forum the game hit the rock button for a decade now. No one remembers the shit ton of hate that MoP received with the asian theme and all the panda stories? Or how WoD was received? Did you forget WOD?!?! Or the first year of Legion 'till they fixed the broken legendary system? Reddit was a memefest for months and months.

    So no, the 8 months content drought was bad, but everything else is pretty decent with SL.
    WoW has been hitting rock bottom since it came out. I really wish I still had that list of all the features and changes a Blue had back on the old WoW forums he would copy/paste every time one of these topics came out.
    Just don't reply to me. Please. If you can help it.

  5. #5
    Legendary! Obelisk Kai's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nnyco View Post
    Arent wow is dead threads forbidden?
    He didn't say WoW was dead. He said has WoW hit rock bottom. Just like the slovenly drunk who has stumbled out of bar, collapsed in the nearest gutter and fouled himself in every possible way isn't dead, but has hit rock bottom.

    WoW has not hit rock bottom. As recent days have proven just when you think they've hit rock bottom, it turns out there isn't a floor. Even focusing on the gaming side, you thought Cataclysm was rock bottom? They gave us WOD. You thought WOD was rock bottom? Behold BFA. You think BFA was rock bottom, they give you Shadowlands.

    There is always more rock to burrow through in the quest to maximise profits from a shrivelling player base with less resources. There is no bottom.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Clozer View Post
    If it was for this forum the game hit the rock button for a decade now. No one remembers the shit ton of hate that MoP received with the asian theme and all the panda stories? Or how WoD was received? Did you forget WOD?!?! Or the first year of Legion 'till they fixed the broken legendary system? Reddit was a memefest for months and months.

    So no, the 8 months content drought was bad, but everything else is pretty decent with SL.
    Do you consider a content drought to begin the moment the patch is released? Like we're two weeks into the xpac and you say "week two of content drought"? Cause the xpac has only been out about eight months.
    The most difficult thing to do is accept that there is nothing wrong with things you don't like and accept that people can like things you don't.

  7. #7
    Considering that it was at "rock bottom" already when I started, according to these forums, I'm surprised it has any rock bottoms left to hit.

    The next quarterly has to come out, until then I'll say they hit rock bottom performance-wise with WoD. Any other expansion, and the hatred for the game displayed on MMO-C never ever reflected properly in its performance with audiences.

  8. #8
    The Lightbringer Cæli's Avatar
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    No: the worst is to come
    but we have classic

  9. #9
    Legendary!
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    This is honestly nothing compared to WoD.
    AchaeaKoralin - Are you still out there? | Classic Priest

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Cæli View Post
    No: the worst is to come
    but we have classic
    Excellent post, can't wait for Classic to get the WoW Token and prove Madseason right for quitting when he did. /s
    OT: I'd say the raid is also quite excellent but overall, can't say this patch has blown my socks off.

  11. #11
    Dunno, m+ ques are insane right now. So many people sign for keys lol.

  12. #12
    I don't think it has yet. Rock bottom implies it can't get worse. We still haven't finished the 9.1 campaign which has been a mess and only worse with each week. There's also whatever 9.2 is going to be, and likely 10.0 won't be able to pivot fast enough to really address the concerns of the game (if the team finally chooses to listen to feedback that is). I think we have further to fall before we hit rock bottom, my suspicion is that 11.0 will be the earliest we'll see substantial change starting to happen. Plus, who knows who the next content creator to part ways with WoW will be. I know T&E is having a hard time with it, gaming kinda already part ways with WoW, Bellular will likely stay for a while but who knows how long that'll last if things at Blizzard doesn't change.

    And it goes without saying that's assuming there won't be more damaging things about the lawsuit to come out, which there likely will be.

  13. #13

  14. #14
    Na. Shadowlands isn't the best but it's decent, I'd rate it the most middle of the road xpack myself. Worse than Wrath, Mists and Legion but better than the rest I played (vanilla, Cata, WoD, BFA). It has rough edges like every expansion and people exaggerate them like they were personal insults like every expansion, but overall the world content is actually not that terrible this time around, the grinds aren't bad at all unless you're going insane for like 3 sockets, M+ is a clear step up from BFA, both raids have been good, the story is completely stupid but that's just expected at this point, the Great Vault is muuuuuch better than the old M+ chest, Torghast and Leggies are OK, and I couldn't care less about PvP.

    Its cardinal sins were perhaps no doing enough new/groundbreaking things to retain more casual players and of course the early content drought into a patch that was again just OK.

    Of course if you follow angry forums and Youtubers who make money out of saying the game is trash, it'll always seem trash. Legion was berated only slightly less on MMO-C but now people say it's a good expansion, for the most part at least.
    It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia

    The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.

  15. #15
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    I'll think we know something in a month. I don't really think we know anything about how this goes while all of this is swirling around.

    Is it worse than the population crater in Cataclysm. Maybe, maybe not. Do video game influencers have that much influence? I don't think so really. Most people don't even know they're alive.

    As for players being disgruntled, angry, yada, yada, yada....You can't really judge that by people posting online, especially here, a site filled with former players with an axe to grind and an outsized voice proportionate to their actual numbers. I've been here over ten years and for most of that time forums have been a shitshow of "WoW is dead", "WoW is dying", etc. I think we've had multiple threads like that every single week for over 10 years. This is just an echo chamber and since the one specifically here has a high percentage of people who have unsubscribed long ago it can be safely ignored. I would love to encourage constructive discussion and I would even like it if people presented a balanced view of the game, i.e. "I like this. I'm not crazy about that. What the fuck were they thinking" stuff. Most discussion is anything but constructive and so that's a problem.

    But I think the right answer to the topic is that it's too soon to know. They've definitely taken a hit and it's not over yet.
    Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2021-07-28 at 11:31 PM.
    "...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."

  16. #16
    Brewmaster SunspotAnims's Avatar
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    I still think neither Shadowlands nor BfA were nearly as hollow as WoD. WoD had virtually no max-level world content, and alternate endgame avenues like M+ didn't even exist yet. The only worthwhile thing you could get out of garrisons was free gold. And of course 6.1 didn't actually add any content. And its main story was a mess as well.

    Even just considering the baseline level of what's to offer, SL and BfA are stronger expansions than WoD, but I'm aware that community perception is a strong factor and that the actual strength of the expansion doesn't really matter compared to how people feel about it.

    Personally I think the solution is obvious: go big for 10.0. I don't care how long it takes, but I agree that gameplay innovation has largely stagnated since Legion so 10.0 needs to mark a willingness to do something new. Legion showed that the community's feelings can come back from WoD so it is quite possible that it can be done again.

  17. #17
    Nah. Just a boring FOTM lull.

  18. #18
    It just like any game that is doing bad at a certain time, whenever blizzard decide to to put everything into an expansion again and make it truly fun to play they will be back in no time on the top of the mountain way above the rest of the mmos out there. We just have to wait and see for blizzard to decide to give everything again.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Jastall View Post
    Na. Shadowlands isn't the best but it's decent, I'd rate it the most middle of the road xpack myself. Worse than Wrath, Mists and Legion but better than the rest I played (vanilla, Cata, WoD, BFA). It has rough edges like every expansion and people exaggerate them like they were personal insults like every expansion, but overall the world content is actually not that terrible this time around, the grinds aren't bad at all unless you're going insane for like 3 sockets, M+ is a clear step up from BFA, both raids have been good, the story is completely stupid but that's just expected at this point, the Great Vault is muuuuuch better than the old M+ chest, Torghast and Leggies are OK, and I couldn't care less about PvP.

    Its cardinal sins were perhaps no doing enough new/groundbreaking things to retain more casual players and of course the early content drought into a patch that was again just OK.

    Of course if you follow angry forums and Youtubers who make money out of saying the game is trash, it'll always seem trash. Legion was berated only slightly less on MMO-C but now people say it's a good expansion, for the most part at least.
    What do you consider as "world content"?

    How is m+ a clear step up compared to BFA? Which part of M+ you consider as "clear step up"?

    Great Vault is a looooooooot worse than BFA. In BFA we had at least 2 guarantee items. 1 from M+, 1 from pvp. Now, if you play both pvp/pve, you're f*cked.

    Torghast and "leggies" are NOT ok. They are beyond broken, obligatory and clearly they have BIS list. They are pain in ass to craft and they are huuuuuuuge gold sink.

    The fact that you couldn't care less about PVP doesn't make it look any good. It's worse than BFA/Legion (even tho we have pvp vendors now)


    We don't need extra new/groundbreaking things. That's the issue with current dev team. They want more, more, more, MORE... Sometime the less is more. Better focus on quality than quantity.

    About last 1? I can't say anything. I don't follow ANY youtuber/streamer/etc/etc...
    Tho I still don't understand why people call Legion good expansion. It had just good quest lines (order hall + weps) and mage tower challenge. Rest was pre-bfa/sl sh*t fest. (endless grinds, chores, systems, systems, systems, systems....)

    Last good (and THE BEST) expansion was MOP to me. (I know this is subjective, but I'm just going with "logical thinking" on this 1)

  20. #20
    I am Murloc! dacoolist's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nnyco View Post
    Arent wow is dead threads forbidden?
    Yo I'll say it now, I'll SAY IT AGAIN: WoW died during the summer of 2004 during the Stress Test ALPHA (according to the FORUMS)

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