1.3 million sub drop

[Glorious Leader]

I think they were terrified of people running out of things to do. So instead that gave too many things the players felt they had to do. Straight from one error into another.

Couple that with organized raids being priced out of reach of most players, guilds bleeding from Cataclysm, LFR being meh at best, and PvP being more broken than anytime since Vanilla, a lot of players must have said "eh, going to go play something else."

But I mean even if those other things were faster than just running dungeons why is it better to have to do different things? It's not so much the time consuming aspect that I'm wondering (it bugs me but I get it) it's the very idea that doing different things is somehow better? I don't get it? If it took equally as much time to say just run dungeons vs do that laundry list of crap they put out in the blog what is the benefit to having players do different things?

The only thing i've ever read about this issue was from GC who thought that doing the same thing over and over lead to burnout and this was with specific regards to dungeons. But apparently not dailies? Like he even admitted on twitter that removing the cap was a mistake. But no that wasn't the mistake. The cap was stupid for people who were gung ho fired up to do dailies. The cap makes sense for people WHO ONLY DO DAILIES TO SPEND THE VALOR. The cap isn't the issue, the double gate is and was and always has been. I've been saying it since day one. Get rid of the stupid double gate.

[Zeras]

Cool, can we go back to our demons, medieval castles and tin men? bwhuahua. Really i can't stand this expansion anymore, bores me to tears, but then again i been playing a long time so, meh mostly the game itself.

[ruuBEN]

I'll just use this as the mega thread;

to be quite honest, the game is having some quality content patches imo. A lot better than what I'd usually expect. I just don't know exactly what's doing it for me (To make me stop playing)

I have tons of friends and stuff who're playing daily, I just. Dunno. The theme is killing me, I know that much.

[Dero]

I didn't like how most of the content was locked behind dailies and lore wise, this entire expansion feels like a filler TV season; the plots unfolding in Pandaria don't really play a part in the grand scheme of the Warcraft universe.

Because they don't make them truly and that is a massive issue its seems like every new xpac we time travel and everything else is forgotten like right now we are in Pandaria and that was also untouched by the cataclysm though it was closer to the maelstrom then kalimdor/ek same as northrend nothing even touched due to laziness in design and spending more time on things that don't matter like challenge modes when not everyone does them but they say making new 5 mans which everyone does do is a waste of resources

[Korgoth]

What is that a 33% drop from Wrath now? Cataclysm and Pandaclysm... well maybe they will get back to what worked with the next expansion; and start planning WoW 2 to get the nasty panda taste out of our mouths.

[Osmeric]

But I mean even if those other things were faster than just running dungeons why is it better to have to do different things? It's not so much the time consuming aspect that I'm wondering (it bugs me but I get it) it's the very idea that doing different things is somehow better? I don't get it? If it took equally as much time to say just run dungeons vs do that laundry list of crap they put out in the blog what is the benefit to having players do different things?

If I had to get cynical: maybe Blizzard saw some up and coming competitors, and said to themselves "if we make our players play twice as many hours a week, they won't have time for those other games."

[Jtbrig7390]

Perhaps due to numbers that showed LFR was in fact a huge flop that people did once for the achievement and then never touched again.

If that was true then you would not be able to get into any current raids using LFR....so that long prove's you wrong.

[Zakkimatsu]

so they're still making 1.5 billion a year alone from WoW subscriptions. what a "failing" company. i don't know why people get so worked up over sub loss. you guys remember swtor? THAT was something to be worried about. within a month i saw an average of 90 people on first planet to 10 and 0-1 on the last 4 planets (on what was "high" pop server)

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

No, but it's ok to blame the game that didn't retain them.

Understand that the casuals are not an optional component of the player population. Without them, the game is toast.

If this proved anything, it proved who's more populous. The 100s of thousands of hardcores, or the millions of casuals.

[Deleted]

No, but it's ok to blame the game that didn't retain them.

Understand that the casuals are not an optional component of the player population. Without them, the game is toast.

It was a joke Osmeric

All I am saying is people tend to stick to one thing and then blame it for decline. Good example are dungeons. In TBC dungeons were hard - subs were growing. In WOTLK dungeons were easy - subs were growing (at the begining). In Cata dungeons were hard again - subs were dropping. In Mists dungeons are easy again - subs are dropping. Maybe it's more then just dungeons?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

If that was true then you would not be able to get into any current raids using LFR....so that long prove's you wrong.

I mean in 4.3. That was what made them decide that MoP's new features had to be mandatory as part of the gearing process.

And I will back that up. The first few weeks of 4.3 LFR was fast, after that it took near an hour to get a group.

[Glorious Leader]

If this proved anything, it proved who's more populous. The 100s of thousands of hardcores, or the millions of casuals.

They didn't need to make this expansion to prove that. All the hardcores could leave and it wouldn't matter one bit.

[MoanaLisa]

But I mean even if those other things were faster than just running dungeons why is it better to have to do different things? It's not so much the time consuming aspect that I'm wondering (it bugs me but I get it) it's the very idea that doing different things is somehow better? I don't get it?

Because in a rational world, it's more options to get to more or less the same place. A lot of people who play World of Warcraft believe they're missing something if they don't do everything possible in PVE. I hear this sort of chatter all the time in my guild chat and the post I just made speaks to it a little bit. There's a lot to do and a lot that I would like to do; far more than I'll ever get around to actually doing. This doesn't overly bother me but I can imagine that it would be frustrating for someone who thinks they have to do it all. Is it easier to just say 'screw it' and not do any of it? Maybe.

[Brangh]

Having had a friend and his wife come back after almost 3 years, it seems obvious to me. They enjoyed the pet battles, thought it was charming to be a panda. Faced with the idea they had to level 90 and then level their pandas, they caved in and admitted they just weren't interested anymore.

There is simply no hook that attracts fresh players. The years people claim WoW thrived gloss over the fact that a lot of the players in Classic and TBC were lifelong MMO or RPG players from Final Fantasy and Everquest. They want this. When a lot of new players see WoW though, they don't return the same feeling. Whether it's because everything is handed to them, because they see it as a daily commitment to succeed, etc., WoW presents not welcome mat -not saying it isn't easy to start, but a new player is seeing a lot of barriers and commitments instead of opportunities and an open world.

[But I Hate You All]

I could be wrong about this but I believe that it released in early April.

April 10th 2013.


So this 1.3 million lost was before AOW

[nekobaka]

Another thing I don't understand is their conviction that they'd rather players have to do multiple different things for gear as opposed to just one thing they like.

Usual overreaction from Blizzard due to lack of content issues in Cata coupled with the fast catch up mechanisms. Blizzard even went as far as to release LFR which was planned for MoP without the loot system they had planned for it due to the tech not being ready. So much for releasing things when they are ready. MoP could have been quite different had it not been for lack of content issue back in Cata.

[Osmeric]

April 10th 2013.


So this 1.3 million lost was before AOW

Didn't AoW release earlier in Asia?

[stryfe1]

The simple fact is, WoW is a product, so it's going to have a life cycle--where it is probably beyond maturity and into decline. Compounding things is the other fact that the MMO-RPG genre is also a product with its own life cycle--if I had to guess where it's at, probably maturity to late-maturity phase. People want to compare a product and the company to what it was some 6-9 years ago when it was new and growing. It isn't beneficial to do that really. Now, there are all kinds of new competition for people's time that weren't around then, e.g. app based games, an explosion of annual FPS games, recovery from a global recession, streaming services delivering things instantly.

You all point it out in your own ways. Blizzard was a pro at the intro and growth. They need to get back there again, and like many more of you suggest, it will probably come in the form of Titan. In the meantime, if you are enjoying it, just keep hoping they put out a product to keep themselves successful in the decline.

[Yalingo]

8300000 x $14.99 = $124 417 000 per month.

[Ragashii]

They didn't need to make this expansion to prove that. All the hardcores could leave and it wouldn't matter one bit.

It would matter, to a degree. There are a lot of casuals that look up to the hardcore and admire them. There are also a lot of casuals that hate hardcores. It helps drive the playerbase. Basically it equates to progression in the community.

But then again, there are lots of people that simply don't care.