Who will be left after the WoWpocalypse?

[Aztrazolo]

I have no preconceived notions here. But I was wondering last night (after reading a few "WoW is dying"-type threads and stories) when after WoW does ultimately lose the lion's share of its subscriber base (not speculating as to why. The laws of attrition just make it inevitable), what type of player will remain? Will it be those who truly love the game and always have, and thus will steward the memories of what a true gaming community always was? Will it be the lowest common denominator of gamer that takes what he wants with no regard for others? Will it be largely a very young crowd for which WoW has been tweaked for as it sails in to the sunset?

Keep in mind, I'm not referring to a WoW that still has millions of subscribers. I'm talking about a WoW that has no more subscribers (or less) than any other MMO out there. Will it be able to persist in some form in its current iteration for years to come after it equalizes its numbers with other games (aside from variances in subscription models)? Or will it tail off so fast in that time that it simply "fades away", as they say.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

It looks to me like the remainers will be the cutting edge raiders and arena stars who make their living off playing the game.

That's, I think, why Blizz doesn't feel a need to make the raids super hard for them, and to a degree why they don't have to put too much into new PvP content. Those players will stay even when most everyone else is just queueing for LFR directly from their battle.net client.

[Vermicious]

The 'wow is dying' type threads are made by the very loud few who think it is dying... so there's not that much to worry about.

World of Warcraft will be a major MMO for the foreseeable future.

[Beergod]

The 'wow is dying' type threads are made by the very loud few who think it is dying... so there's not that much to worry about.

World of Warcraft will be a major MMO for the foreseeable future.

He's saying that if and when it does, who will still be here..

But I think that half the players that have played the game since vanilla or BC would stick around and still do some raids and dailies here and there. I also feel that the casuals will be long gone and playing titan or something f2p. But it's gonna be a long time until WoW falls under 1 million subscribers.

[MoanaLisa]

It will go to F2P at some point well before it's 'dead'. When that happens, there will likely be a lot of players around. Maybe more than ever before.

[pld]

It looks to me like the remainers will be the cutting edge raiders and arena stars who make their living off playing the game.

That's, I think, why Blizz doesn't feel a need to make the raids super hard for them, and to a degree why they don't have to put too much into new PvP content. Those players will stay even when most everyone else is just queueing for LFR directly from their battle.net client.

It'll probably be the opposite IMO. Apart from the fact that VERY few raiders and PvPers actually make a living from playing the game, they would no longer be able to profit from a game that has a small number of followers. The cutting edge raiders and arena players would most likely move onto the next "big" game.

The WoW community at that point would most likely be casual players and all those people who always wanted to try WoW, but were warded off by the monthly sub fee. I can't imagine the PvE or PvP scene would be nearly as competitive as it is now.