The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Reive]

I think the estimation of 50% lost to the Lawsuits is wild. Yes, it was a big lawsuit. Yes everything happening alongside SL and SL itself were terrible. But I think that no matter how many "good apples" one perceives on the internet, there's a dozen for each one that couldn't give less of a fuck on who was drinking who's breast milk at big corporation x that happens to make the Video Game they play.

I think it's a combination of multiple things.

1) natural loss of players after the hype of the next expansion is gone
2) content drought/chores
3) lawsuit
4) 9.1
5) ffxiv shilling

with all these factors, my 50% is not impossible

[Dismayxz]

I think it's a combination of multiple things.

1) natural loss of players after the hype of the next expansion is gone
2) content drought/chores
3) lawsuit
4) 9.1
5) ffxiv shilling

with all these factors, my 50% is not impossible

The way you wrote it really only focused on the lawsuit. All those factors together, I totally agree that that's possible.

[Ferlion]

1)wow had 12m subs between wrath and cata
2)the last time they reported the sub numbers was at the end of wod with 4.5m subs
3)in legion one dev said that wow had reached again 10m subs but that was later dismissed
4)shadowlands was (for only 24 hours) the fastest selling pc game with 3.7m d1 sales. Nathria/m+ had higher peaks than bfa. Easy to think that wow had at least 7m players at the start of shadowlands. then the lawsuit happened and wow lost at least 50% of its players
5) dragonflight d1 sales were so low that blizzard refused to mention them. it's easy to believe they were lower than the lowest announced number (2.4m from tbc)
6) last jan wow offcially lost china. china was supposed to be at least 50% of the playerbase. Some moved to taiwan/na servers, but most stopped playing completely

Considering all this, i think that retail wow has around 1.5-2m players

WoW never counted Chinese players in their sub count

[Dracullus]

1)wow had 12m subs between wrath and cata
2)the last time they reported the sub numbers was at the end of wod with 4.5m subs
3)in legion one dev said that wow had reached again 10m subs but that was later dismissed
4)shadowlands was (for only 24 hours) the fastest selling pc game with 3.7m d1 sales. Nathria/m+ had higher peaks than bfa. Easy to think that wow had at least 7m players at the start of shadowlands. then the lawsuit happened and wow lost at least 50% of its players
5) dragonflight d1 sales were so low that blizzard refused to mention them. it's easy to believe they were lower than the lowest announced number (2.4m from tbc)
6) last jan wow offcially lost china. china was supposed to be at least 50% of the playerbase. Some moved to taiwan/na servers, but most stopped playing completely

Considering all this, i think that retail wow has around 1.5-2m players

It's official boys, we are here again:



Why just 2M for DF? You can go much lower than this, it's number pulled from your imagination anyway.

[Woggmer]

I'm still saying that all the Shadowlands lore would have been more liked if they had seeded it during Legion and BfA. The Nightmare Raid and Ursoc's death there could have given us a tease for Ardenweald, while the Maldraxxi could have appeared in a side quest on Argus, maybe even with a Drakka tease there. Similiary, we could have gotten a side plot with a Kyrian during the 4th War who would be wondering why all the souls go into the Maw, or a Dreadlord hinting at Revendreth.

I would say if we ended up in the Life Realms first before Shadowlands, we probably would've been eased into the idea of cosmic realms a lot better than how Shadowlands handled it... especially the whole "This is where everyone goes when they die" as opposed to the "Life Lands" where "This is where Wild Gods are born, and here's the origin of the Vulpera.. and the Sethrak... and how the Tauren were created" (I know that's inaccurate to lore but this is just me making up an example)

And the idea of a Dreadlord lurking close to Elune (as referenced in the one book from Revendreth) would've been a great way to tease the connection that the Nathrezim didn't originate from the realms of Fel and Chaos.

[Dismayxz]

I could see the current subs sitting between 2 and 5 million, probably closer to around 3/4 however. Which at either end, is still a staggering amount of monthly income.

I have a friend who is so very insistent on wow becoming free to play because it in his words: 'Doesn't make any money'. I chuckle every time he brings this up.

Sensible. If WoW wasn't doing something right financially, I am almost certain they'd have turned that project and the teams used on it into a mobile division. It's not exactly hard for Mobile Games to market and make loads, if half the people doomsaying and whining had a sensible reason, I'd agree with them but more often than not they come in with weird ass emotional takes that have no sensible basis or logic behind 'em.

[Reive]

It's official boys, we are here again:



Why just 2M for DF? You can go much lower than this, it's number pulled from your imagination anyway.

yeah that's why i said I THINK lmao. we can't really know df numbers, it's just speculation. the rest of the things i said tho are true and there is data to prove that

[Dismayxz]

I would say if we ended up in the Life Realms first before Shadowlands, we probably would've been eased into the idea of cosmic realms a lot better than how Shadowlands handled it... especially the whole "This is where everyone goes when they die" as opposed to the "Life Lands" where "This is where Wild Gods are born, and here's the origin of the Vulpera.. and the Sethrak... and how the Tauren were created"

And the idea of a Dreadlord lurking close to Elune (as referenced in the one book from Revendreth) would've been a great way to tease the connection that the Nathrezim didn't originate from the realms of Fel and Chaos.

W Shadowlands Take.

The Lifelands could've indeed done a very, very good job to build up the Shadowlands and it's stories.

[Reive]

The way you wrote it really only focused on the lawsuit. All those factors together, I totally agree that that's possible.

yeah mb, but i think most of those overlap. the lawsuit was the breaking point for many.

[Palapop]

Dragonscale Expedition has an upgrade tree - shared account wide (no choice nodes)

Maruukai has upgrades for Hunts (Shikaar Hunting tactics) - unlocked account wide, can pick "talents" for each character separately

Cobalt Assembly has one as well that is also shared account wide (no choice nodes)

And how impactful are these to gameplay? Beside eating resources?

[Ersula]

with all these factors, my 50% is not impossible

I think the people hyping classic & blackpilling retail forgot its the same subscription figure.

W Shadowlands Take.

The Lifelands could've indeed done a very, very good job to build up the Shadowlands and it's stories.

They did. The Lifelands have a lot of lore coverage: It's called the emerald dream. Note how on the cosmology chart the Emerald dream is in the same position relative to the Life Sphere as the Shadowlands is to the Death Sphere. Unless you're saying the Shadowlands & Deathlands are two different places in which case there is no hope for you.

[Woggmer]

I could see the current subs sitting between 2 and 5 million, probably closer to around 3/4 however. Which at either end, is still a staggering amount of monthly income.

I have a friend who is so very insistent on wow becoming free to play because it in his words: 'Doesn't make any money'. I chuckle every time he brings this up.

The way I saw it, Wrath wasn't so much WoW peaking too early but rather it was an abnormal interest behind it due to it being the start of Social Media and what not.

The current numbers are probably consistent because that is the same level as Vanilla/TBC's numbers were so despite the slow decline people pull up and say "WOW IS DYING! I'M IN SHAMBLESSSS!!!1!!!!!111" in reality, this is just fluctuating to what the normal subscriber count was.

That's my outlook on it.

- - - Updated - - -

W Shadowlands Take.

The Lifelands could've indeed done a very, very good job to build up the Shadowlands and it's stories.

Yeah, it is better than Varimathras in Antorus shouting "DEATH IS COMING FOR YOU ALL!!!" when he meant it in the most literal sense possible.

[Teriz]

We don't know for sure what the Storm Rider mount is yet. But if it's that shadowy gryphon we've seen textures for (which, to be fair, some clues suggest), then it fits with a Void expansion.

That shadowy gryphon isn’t the heroic mount.

Legion had the Illidari Felstalker, a demonic mount used by the Demon Hunters against the Legion.

Shadowlands had that weird anima worm thingie, a spiritual mount we kind of used against the forces of Death.

The Storm Rider could be a gryphon-like creature that has been subjected to and infused by the Void somehow, or the essence of the 5th Old God, and used by us or our newfound allies against the Void.

It’s more likely an air elemental mount, since there are air elementals called Stormriders near the storm peaks in Northrend near Ulduar (a possible connection to Khaz Algar). Further in dwarven culture, “Storm Rider” pertains to the rider, not the gryphon.

- - - Updated - - -

Ironic, coming from the one who keeps screeching that Yrel is for realsies the true new expansion NPC! Believe me bruh! it's true.

Didn't happen in SL, didn't happen in DF, won't happen now.

I haven’t mentioned Yrel for weeks. That ship has also sailed.

[Dracullus]

the rest of the things i said tho are true and there is data to prove that

Oh, really?

3)in legion one dev said that wow had reached again 10m subs but that was later dismissed - you suggest Blizzard denied that data is correct, but they denied that Chilton said it, because they have policy to not talk about subs numbers. Big difference.

4)shadowlands was (for only 24 hours) (???) the fastest selling pc game with 3.7m d1 sales. Nathria/m+ had higher peaks than bfa. Easy to think that wow had at least 7m players at the start of shadowlands. then the lawsuit happened and wow lost at least 50% of its players pure speculation part

5) dragonflight d1 sales were so low that blizzard refused to mention them. it's easy to believe they were lower than the lowest announced number (2.4m from tbc)
pure speculation part - we only know DF didn't break 3.7M record, which way higher than usual number we get from pre-orders - 3.3M for Cata,WoD,Legion, 3.4M from BfA.

6) last jan wow offcially lost china. china was supposed to be at least 50% of the playerbase. Some moved to taiwan/na servers, but most stopped playing completely - another speculation, not to mention China didn't have subscription system, I think they even didn't have to buy expansions.

Not to mention you hide, intentionally or not, informations that goes against your theory. For example: https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-war...its-first-day/:

More importantly, in the months leading up to the expansion's release, World of Warcraft itself "reached and sustained its highest number of players on monthly or longer-term subscriptions compared to the same period ahead of and following any WoW expansion in the past decade, in both the West and the East."

You simply have like 5 puzzles out of 100 and try to guess what is on picture. Well, good luck with that.

[Reive]

I think the people hyping classic & blackpilling retail forgot its the same subscription figure.

No need for that snide remark. you forgot that while classic and retail share the same subscription they don't necessarily share the same number of players. We're not talking about how much money blizzard is making with wow, but about the state of retail. 2m players is not unbelievable considering how low the interest in retail seems to be this expansion.

[flan1337]

Can you move the subscription number guesses to another thread please?

[Ferlion]

I think WoW is almost certainly still the MMO with the most subs, and arguing over "But how many people it has" is kind of pointless when looked at from that light

[milkmustache]

That shadowy gryphon isn’t the heroic mount.

You don't know this for a fact. Stop speaking in definitive answers. It is reductive to discussion.

[Reive]

Oh, really?

3)in legion one dev said that wow had reached again 10m subs but that was later dismissed - you suggest Blizzard denied that data is correct, but they denied that Chilton said it, because they have policy to not talk about subs numbers. Big difference.

4)shadowlands was (for only 24 hours) (???) the fastest selling pc game with 3.7m d1 sales. Nathria/m+ had higher peaks than bfa. Easy to think that wow had at least 7m players at the start of shadowlands. then the lawsuit happened and wow lost at least 50% of its players pure speculation part

5) dragonflight d1 sales were so low that blizzard refused to mention them. it's easy to believe they were lower than the lowest announced number (2.4m from tbc)
pure speculation part - we only know DF didn't break 3.7M record, which way higher than usual number we get from pre-orders - 3.3M for Cata,WoD,Legion, 3.4M from BfA.

6) last jan wow offcially lost china. china was supposed to be at least 50% of the playerbase. Some moved to taiwan/na servers, but most stopped playing completely - another speculation, not to mention China didn't have subscription system, I think they even didn't have to buy expansions.

Not to mention you hide, intentionally or not, informations that goes against your theory. For example: https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-war...its-first-day/:

More importantly, in the months leading up to the expansion's release, World of Warcraft itself "reached and sustained its highest number of players on monthly or longer-term subscriptions compared to the same period ahead of and following any WoW expansion in the past decade, in both the West and the East."

You simply have like 5 puzzles out of 100 and try to guess what is on picture. Well, good luck with that.

I'm sure blizzard is hiding dragonflight's overwhelming succes to not scare its competitors.

As i told you above, of course it's speculation. "i think" is the key part. It's just easier to assume wow doesn't have 5-7-12m players anymore lol. no way to exactly know the number of players anymore after blizzard stopped reporting subs. expansion sales were a good metric to gauge how much interest there is still for the game, but they stopped reporting those in df. weird considering they had ups and downs through the years in terms of sale numbers. i think they would have reported them if they were above the lowest currently known number (2.4m from tbc)

[Teriz]

You don't know this for a fact. Stop speaking in definitive answers. It is reductive to discussion.

You do understand that if that’s the heroic mount for 11.0 that would be one of the biggest encryption screw ups Blizzard has ever done right?

Which is why it isn’t.