WoW Down to 8.3 Million Subscribers

[kojinshugi]

They created an Asian expansion for the Chinese and even they stopped subscribing. What could we expect from the expansion with the coldest reception in World of Warcraft history...?

What on earth are you talking about? MoP was hugely lauded at launch.

I've personally quit, but not really because of the quality of the expansion but the quality of the playerbase. People are bad, lazy, and proud of it.

The only complaint I have about MoP is the inclusion of scenarios at the expense of 5-mans. Playing an MMO without the holy trinity of tank/heal/dps is just dumb.

[Mormolyce]

Assuming its the type of content you enjoy playing to start with

Like I said, if you only enjoy dungeons and not raids, that's what we have CMs for now.

What else do you want? Heroic mode quests?

[masterman]

They created an Asian expansion for the Chinamen and even they stopped subscribing. What could we expect from the expansion with the coldest reception in World of Warcraft history...?

[Zokten]

1.) If they are saying the game is easy, then I would assume they are comparing the highest difficulty of content. Wait, you're right, I assume people are using their brain too much.

You assume they are only talking about one area of content now the many that are within the game.

2.) The fact that you made that statement sadly shows how ignorant and clueless you really are. Really look up the definition of ignorant too. A peak, is just that... A peak. If something drops below it, it does not mean it is dying. It is simply leveling.

Leveling means neither really going up or down much, which is not the case.

3.) I'm sensing a lack of information and knowledge. Read a book.

I'm sensing some hardline fanboyism from you.

And let's not forget heroic scenarios coming, ranked PvP, various sites to compete for best class/guild performance, two tiers scaled better than BC and notably difficult.

Ignorance is a disease.

I hear that is all game content WoW has within it.

Try again buddy.

[Salech]

They'll be aight. I as a subscriber am enjoying the game. Not always about quantity.

Agree with you about the quantity and that makes the game worse when all you focus on are quantity, nothing in MoP so far has been good at all, Cataclysm dungeons in the beginning where you had to actually play your characters strength was fun, but after that, like 1 month into cata it all fell apart and now they are just pushing more and more crap content on people.

[walexia]

I quit and have been playing gw2 for sometime now, sure their not so many players running around in the questing areas ..but same for wow and At least it feels like something new .I needed a long break from wow and it may be indefinite.
If they wanna encourage players to remain in the game they need to start with getting rid of, or at least reducing their rediculous transfer and race change fees, they cost an arm and a leg and If i spent that much in other free to play games.....wow i could get ALOT.So yeah the fees on top of the sub helped contribute to chasing me away, glad to be back to my first love mmo gw2 (for the moment)

[draykorinee]

Good god man, don't try to cap VP in one day.

Mine's always capped by the end of the week and all I do is 4 LFR queues spread out over the week, a heroic+scenario every other day when I can be bothered, and some easymode IOT content for some bonus VP. I'm capped by Sunday and it's effortless.

The biggest problem Blizzard is having is this mentality of older players that they need to grind things out immediately instead of doing them at a more relaxed pace.

I was going on holiday and had 2 days to play, generally I dont worry, was just highlighting that before you could run heroics back to back and cap fairly quickly.

[Salech]

out of curiosity, what are GW2 number of players? i know SWTOR have over 2 million

Last they spoke about it they had sold close to 4 million copies for Gw2 alone, and since Gw2 around 0.5 millions extra of GW1.

[Omega10]

"Maybe some people would be happy to see World of Warcraft just die and be gone. Not me. The game has provided more happiness and enjoyment to me since I started playing in the summer of 2006 than almost anything else in my life. I don't like seeing WoW suffer and I certainly don't like the idea of WoW 'dying'"

Agree 100% with this. WOW has provided my wife and myself with hundreds (thousands?) of hours of enjoyment and happiness. I am hoping that the population of WOW stabilizes at a number high enough for WOW to stay profitable (and that Blizzard continues to keep the game going). In the meantime, my wife and I will continue to enjoy ourselves

[Nienor]

I quit wow not because the game is bad. The one and only reason was the dead server i was on and the fact that blizzard did nothing for this huge problem for years. Blizzard was known for their support after you purchase the game but personally i couldn't be more disappointed. I'll think twice before buying one of their games in the future too...

[Zephre]

Agree with you about the quantity and that makes the game worse when all you focus on are quantity, nothing in MoP so far has been good at all, Cataclysm dungeons in the beginning where you had to actually play your characters strength was fun, but after that, like 1 month into cata it all fell apart and now they are just pushing more and more crap content on people.

Don't share your opinion at all sounds like that of a GW2 fanboy trying to bash WoW.

WoW has it's fair share of crap and upcoming crap (5.3) but the 5.2 raid is one of the best they've made in years.

[Tzalix]

So they go back to reputation which people have been asking for since forever, and the numbers drop. What a surprise.

[Cybran]

The main problem is that there is no design direction. All decisions come down to knee-jerks to cater to the loudest group. They try this, try that, don't learn from their mistakes, etc.

They are doing some interesting stuff to convey their story, but the story isn't great. The world events, single scenarios and quest chains would have been much more interesting if the characters were better developed.

They make posts and tweets how too much changes drive people away, but they change their model all the time.

It's not just the aging of the game and burn out. They need to start focusing on the core gameplay instead of scattering resources on minigames and filler content like dailies.

[Castia]

I hated Cata and un-subbed for large parts of it. Iv found MoP the complete opposite though, there's more content than even that caters everybody from casuals to hardcore players. I feel WoW is actually in it's best state for years.

[Isilbêth]

"Players consume content faster and subscribe and unsubscribe as new content is added".

This summarizes largely the cause of the reduction in the subscriptions. When the next expansion will be released, we will see a new increase followed by a new loss of subscriptions.

[bbr]

I can't really say I was expecting such a big drop... yikes. Kinda strange considering the game is only improving over past content.

I was under the impression we were at 7.9 mil already.
So it's rather higher than i expected.
Perhaps the values from the expansion came in? - or people are quitting now after trying the expac?

[Monstercloud]

So they go back to reputation which people have been asking for since forever

Um....what?

Pretty sure there were reputation grinds in Cata too, and some of those were essential to raiding throughout the expansion. Not to the extent of being tied to dailies w/ a fixed amount of rep per day.. but they were there.

[Mormolyce]

The main problem is that there is no design direction. All decisions come down to knee-jerks to cater to the loudest group. They try this, try that, don't learn from their mistakes, etc.

If you knew anything about this game you'd know that's not true. They haven't stubbornly refused to change for 9 years, no. They've tried new things. Some worked and some didn't, but between in-game developments and dev posts like the one you quoted, it's abundantly clear that they have learned from every one.

And they're quite conservative about the game design, frankly.

---------- Post added 2013-05-09 at 07:02 AM ----------

Um....what?

Pretty sure there were reputation grinds in Cata too, and some of those were essential to raiding throughout the expansion. Not to the extent of being tied to dailies w/ a fixed amount of rep per day.. but they were there.

People DID ask for reputations and factions to matter more. I remember that.

Not that Blizzard only does things because people ask for them... they also do things because they think it's the right thing for the game.

[Iseeyou]

Blizzard expects to have less subscribers at the end of the year than they do today.

Oh yeah they are right. Wildstarr ll drain so much WoW players. Way more than GW2 + NW combined

I guess WoW ll loose another 2M By the start of 2014, just because of Wildstar.

New Xbox and Ps4 ll also drain tad lot. So wouldnt be surprise if WoW have 4M Sub in 2014.

I def lost my faith in blizz as they ruined D3 (Totally) and CATA-MOP was terrible. A new xpac with imba content is requiered for WoW to survive in 2014.

Going to sell my wow acc before the end of the year to pay a next gen console lol.

Sell now guys.

Wow was fun, heil to Wow

[Vulcanasm]

What I think the problems are: (Ranked from most to least significant)

• It's been out 8 years.
• Player models have needed updating 4+ years. Graphics engine needs an overhaul. Can't compete with visual appeal of new games.
• No new player retention. Two major reasons: (a) Cataclysm turned WoW from sandbox to rail-rider; (b) 7 years of "innovations" that discourage all social interaction, when most new gamers start as social gamers. Social gamers who make no friends in WoW ... leave.
• Developers so nearsighted/insular that their thinking is cult-like. Majority of development seems to be content most never see: (hard mode) raids. No amount of lost subscribers convinces them WoW's big draw was never raids. No major new "things to do" since arenas.
• Highly toxic community, e.g. thinks "casual" is a dirty word, but "casual" means "anyone who puts in less effort or fewer hours than me".
• Developers embraced the fallacious idea that easy can't be fun. WoW's popularity skyrocketed in BC, but it became much easier. It peaked in WOTLK, when normal mode raids got pugged while current. "WOTLK raids were too easy", says the Cataclysm team, and they lose more subscribers than most MMOs ever had. You'd almost think there was a correlation between accessibility and subscribers ...
• MoP is two clumsily cobbled, disparate games: a pleasant, casual-friendly leveling game, and Raid or Die! The Sequel. The middle ground where they meet is a graveyard of short-sighted, bad decisions.
• PVP balance changes are too little, too late. Five years too late. The best PVPers left no later than Cataclysm. Thanks, Mages.
• Ham-handed 5.3 PVP re-gear shows total ignorance of human nature -- if gear lacks everyday utility, who needs it? If your car outperforms a Ferrari everywhere except one race track, do you buy the Ferrari?
• Developers, and many players, think good players attract players. Yet there are more ways to see good players than ever (e.g. twitch), and players have raised the bar continuously from vanilla. So, if that's true, why'd 1.8 million up and leave?