World of Warcraft down to 7.7M subscribers (600K decline in 3 months)
- Thread starter maniac-kun
- Start date
I had The Hand of Ragnaros in Vanilla. I would run into AB on my AV mount and fools would FLEE. I loved being a shockadin after we cleared out MC and BWL.
Also never forget the world pvp at Tarren Mill and South Shore.
Sax Russel
Banned
This is what I miss the most. Nothing to discover, nothing to explore, every single little game string is talked about in all its glory the second a patch hits the PTR. Oh well.
Raid finder didn't come out until the end of Cata. Harder dungeons at the start of Cata caused a much faster drop in subs. 4.4 actually saw a rise in sub numbers.
Groups rarely wiped at the end of WOTLK when the dungeon finder was added, since gear inflation trivialized everything.
Wafflecakes
Member
Rösti;72970206 said:
Couldn't disagree more.
I just feel like there is not enough to do outside of endgame raiding/pvp. The game needs to be more meaningful outside of that imo. Professions need a MAJOR revamp imo.
Loved the game in Vanilla, hated it afterwards. I come back for every expansion, play for a couple of months and end up quitting again.
WoW does a lot of things right, but there's just so much that I dislike about it having been such a hardcore raider in Everquest for most of the early 2000's..
I suspect those sub numbers will continue to dwindle as time goes on. The same thing happened to Everquest. These games get 3-4 expansions before folks start to move on.
WoW does a lot of things right, but there's just so much that I dislike about it having been such a hardcore raider in Everquest for most of the early 2000's..
I suspect those sub numbers will continue to dwindle as time goes on. The same thing happened to Everquest. These games get 3-4 expansions before folks start to move on.
JetBlackPanda
Member
As someone that lived through Everquest's decline and now WOW (not really ending) just getting smaller I can say that everyone will always say vanilla is the best. Its when you fell in love with the game. There was still a sense of wonder. It always passes, its just the nature of MMO's
I would give anything to have that same feeling again when I started EQ and then WOW its just.. yeah the problem is the game evolves systems change and you can't go back and most the time you really don't want to. Its nostalgia for the most part but it still feels like home.
Rösti;72970206 said:
The people who keep saying things like this either haven't played the game since LK or don't understand what they are talking about.
The game has more challenge now than it ever has. If people want a challenge it's there for them, they just have to choose to do the things that are more challenging. Challenge mode dungeons, Heroic Mode Scenarios, Heroic raids, Brawler's Guild, and coming soon Proving Grounds.
The people who say it's a cakewalk, or it's too easy, etc. are the people who play the easiest modes in the game and then complain it's too easy. It's laughable the amount of people who bitch about the game's difficulty who haven't even attempted the actual challenging content currently in the game. 99% of the people who complain about the difficulty never try anything difficult, they just run in faceroll mode for a month or so and complain the game isn't hard enough.
I couldn't get past reading the first page of this thread. Too much nostalgia and feels reminiscing on my years of playing WoW from vanilla to WoltK. The first 2 years of that game were hands down the most fulfilling and memorable gaming experience I've ever had and will likely ever have.
SargerusBR
I love Pokken!
Not really, i think even with only a million subs they would still get profit
Anyway watch those numbers go up with patch 5.4 releasing in the upcoming weeks
JetBlackPanda
Member
They should reboot a vanilla server with a FTP model where servers can unlock expansions by doing content in order. They did this for Everquest (minus FTP) and it was the best fucking thing ever.
R
Rösti
Unconfirmed Member
I've tried normal mode for contemporary raiding in Mists of Pandaria and I have no problem with that, the difficulty level is fine for that. But Raid Finder happens to be the most popular choice right now for players. I don't like doing it but I do it for the legendary questline Wrathion offers and also because the server I play on doesn't feature any particular raiding environment for normal/heroic. I'm aware that there are many choices for more challenging content and that's good. What I mean is that the overall difficulty of the game in terms of what most players engage in is too lenient. That creates boredom and fatigue, at least it does for me.
Ricerocket
Member
I honestly thought they would be down to something way below that heh. I quit WoW after TBC when my guild died/spslit up raiding Muru? (the boss that required tons of warlocks apparently). Never going back to MMOs until maybe EQnext...
out0v0rder
Member
I still fucking hate this god damn Piece of shit game and have never even played it. I still remember the day in 2005 when all of my friends stopped coming out to lan and instead stayed home and played World of Warcraft every fucking day, all day. Now they don't even play anymore but still dont do shit. Argh.
losing 4 million subscribers isnt a big deal. Ok lol
Haha they sure did wipe and they wiped plenty but w/e we can agree to disagree on something we actually can't prove either way
The most fun I ever had with PvP in this game. God do I miss those days.
Then... play Eve?
SatelliteOfLove
Member
World of Warcraft is officially down to less subscribers than it had at the end of Vanilla, but before the Burning Crusade
Clearly the changes with Wrath were successful! The charts don't lie!
dodgykebaab
Banned
Personally I thought BC raiding was harder and a lot more fun. Actually to give that context, I think BC was the best expansion for WoW.
Anyway, while we are on this topic - I run a series called 'Vanilla VS Panadaria' where in each video I film an area playing through the Vanilla version and Pandaria versions of WoW. Then I put the two versions side by side with each other and show the changes.
Here's Episode 17, Human starting Area: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tinlGnTrWcE
If you like it, you can see the whole episode list here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL622689DEA2FE5B79
Hari Seldon
Member
Tried. I want a next gen version of it.
There is no point in playing an MMO without a community. It defeats the entire purpose.
krameriffic
Member
Rösti;72970206 said:
It is truly fascinating to me how you can go into the CoD thread and people argue "It's popular because it's easy! Anyone can just pick up and play!" But in the WoW thread, "It's UNPOPULAR because it's easy! People want a challenge!"
Which is it folks?
Actually that was just a hypothetical question. The point is that WoW's diminishment has less to do with the quality of the game and more to do with its age and the fact that you can only milk a single game for so long. People would be tired of it no matter what they did, and the numbers would eventually bleed dry no matter what. People like to up their e-cred by saying "if it was still as hardcore as vanilla, it would have WAY more subscribers!" But they're wrong and pathetically transparent. The real surges in subscribership occurred after Blizzard shifted its focus away from the super hardcore difficulty.
It's another classic example of the hardcore crowd mistaking themselves for the majority and most important. You're not. The game would have died years ago if it had kept on the ridiculous level of difficulty and tediousness that existed in vanilla and TBC. WoW was lightning in a bottle and will likely never be recaptured again in the MMO genre. That torch was passed on to LoL and the MOBA genre in general. However, people who pretend that WoW's death is a result of Blizzard making bad decisions about game design are simply wrong. Their decisions have kept it alive.
We get it. You were disappointed by Diablo 3 and think Bobby Kotick is the devil and that Blizzard is doneskies. Rehearsing those prejudices in every thread that deigns to mention Blizzard's name gets quite tedious.
Rösti;72978191 said:
Why does it matter to you what most other people do with their time? Basically you're saying that if everyone isn't forced to do the most challenging content that it bothers you specifically.
And challenge has nothing to do with why the subs are dropping. Cata proved the exact opposite. People dropped like flies because of the forced difficulty. People like to talk about LK as part of the WoW they loved, but it was probably the easiest expansion WoW's ever had. When Cata came out it was culture shock and people didn't like it. MoP blends parts of both of those expansions by giving people choice, which seems to be something the people who complain about difficulty would like to see taken away.
As someone who hardcore raiding for a long time, if it weren't for the tiered difficulty content and LFR I wouldn't be playing the game at all. My server is so dead that getting a guild to raid regular is next to impossible, and even if it weren't I don't have set schedule to play the game. People who still want to raid with a guild and be challenged can still do it like they always have, but now people who don't have that luxury get to see content too, and if that bothers you it's not a game problem, it's a between your ears problem.
I'm going to go ahead and say it, Vanilla WoW fucking sucked. It was fresh and new but it had all kinds of stupid mechanics, features, lacked content and I would never want to go back to it. The nostalgia goggles for it are epic, though. BC was far and a way a better experience and it's really when WoW started to shine.
And player housing! Pretty exciting and also a bunch of old WoW devs are working there on Wildstar.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
WoW isn't a yearly shooter. You don't have natural, inbaked churn to that degree. WoW did however, make less working and needing a goal rather than a methodology to better goals, which in a subscription-based MMO was dangerous for a while (hovering subs in Wrath), to damning (Catackalysm and Mists with deeper ease changes, Box and Sub becoming an anathema, the rise of completely F2P mmmmmmmmmmmobas which aced the "get to the fun part" that WoW tooted to us in 2008 about in a way no content-driven, leveling MMO could ever hope to do.
I had casual friends quitting out of BOREDOM in 09 as they didn't want to do hardmode stuff (which by this time was a serious wall of time, difficulty, dedication, and frontloaded time compared to what was preceeding it to ever-more transient rewards). Many didn't want to anyways, but there they sat, raid ready, in Dalaran with the rest of us just done.
"Kept it alive" doesn't hold water with this and other observations, nor with the facts and how player behavior has worked, is working, and will work.
So different is a better description. I dislike GW2's pve system because of the lack of threat mechanics. I could never put in the same amount of time because of that, plus the crazy grinds I've read about to get cool gear.
Not surprising at all. The game has been stale for years. They thought adding Kung-Fu Pandas would attract the casual crowd but they were wrong.
Also there are to many free to play games and MMOs for WoW to remain as strong as it once was. Dota2 and LoL is sometimes the only game people play.
Also there are to many free to play games and MMOs for WoW to remain as strong as it once was. Dota2 and LoL is sometimes the only game people play.
The catch up mechanics, the by passing of content, and being able to get loot for being afk in lfr is a huge part why a lot of people are leaving. The new people consume the content easily with one month resub, and don't care about true progression. I mean, they get the same gear as normal, and heroic. What incentive is there for them to get better or join a guild and raid? Zero. IF you told a new person to do normals because its harder, but you get the same gear, they wouldn't give a fuck. LFR requires NO COMMITMENT. For example, I can Afk, with white swings, and get the same gear as the best players in the game. YOU GET THE SAME GEAR AS THE BEST PLAYERS BY BEING SHITTY.
No game can thrive when the worst players/less skilled players in the game getting the same loot as the best players in the game.
Also, don't mention ILVL differences. New players don't give a shit about that.
No game can thrive when the worst players/less skilled players in the game getting the same loot as the best players in the game.
Also, don't mention ILVL differences. New players don't give a shit about that.
Haha they sure did wipe and they wiped plenty but w/e we can agree to disagree on something we actually can't prove either way
I wasn't saying they never wiped, but success rates were high enough that it was never an issue.
This is something that's been reiterated on Twitter by Ghostcrawler and the other developers often. High PUG difficulties lead to higher player loss.
maniac-kun
Member
The best players get better loot when they play the heroic version of the Raid.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
No doubt about it, the elite feeling of being a high level raider or pvper left by the time wrath came around. It used to be amazing to see someone decked out in purples, now it's the norm. Hell, they should have introduced a new tier above purple instead of just putting stupid shit like LFR or Heroic under the name.
Those costs equal out at about 8 hours a day. How many hours a day does the average hourly player play?
That's irrelevant. The new players don't care because there is no incentive to care. The LFR versions of their gear looks exactly the same. Heroic gear is better on paper, and if you told a new player they would have to wipe, apply to a guild with a possible trial process, raid 3-4 times a week, and learn the mechanics of the fight, with a high chance they won't get loot to get a shot at that heroic gear....you better believe they would say no thanks. LFR allows them to log in whenever they want to get gear by doing the same content as heroic raiders.
They killed lei shen on LFR. They essentially cleared the same content as normal/H raiders, and got the same loot. Who cares about Rai den because that's not a real incentive to get new players to try the real raids.
Removing the elitist culture is healthier for MMOs that are subscription based. Making it low skilled, but take a long time to achieve something, is what MMOs are about.
you just successfully explained why i have hated the last 2 expansions
im cool with the dungeon finder but the raid finder stopped a lot of my guildies and friends from wantnig to raid which killed my fun so i stopped play a while ago
EternalTruth
Member
Thank god, Blizzard really needs to move onto new things. They are fantastic at making games, and the success of WoW has only stagnated their progress...
maniac-kun
Member
StarCraft 2 is still a damn good game.