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[Duxxy3]

Always drops so long after a content patch.

 

[TemplaerDude]

6.8 million paying subscribers is nothing to scoff at for a 10 year old game. The new expansion will probably bring back a few people as well.

I don't think anyone on GAF or earth is scoffing at that, and I don't understand why someone feels the need to say this in every single one of these threads.

 

[mnannola]

I don't know what is more unbelievable:

1. WoW still has over 6 million subs 10 years after launch.
2. WoW still does not have a sequel 10 years after launch.

How the hell are both of these possible? I mean they haven't even shown anything regarding a sequel, and they are still by far the biggest player in the MMO market.

I don't even know what my point is. It's just crazy to think that 5 years from now, they may still not have a sequal, and WoW may still be the biggest MMO out there.

 

[Einbroch]

duh duh DUHHHHH

NOTHING WOULD MAKE YOU HAPPIER WOULD IT

 

[BearPawB]

I don't know what is more unbelievable:

1. WoW still has over 6 million subs 10 years after launch.
2. WoW still does not have a sequel 10 years after launch.

How the hell are both of these possible? I mean they haven't even shown anything regarding a sequel, and they are still by far the biggest player in the MMO market.

I don't even know what my point is. It's just crazy to think that 5 years from now, they may still not have a sequal, and WoW may still be the biggest MMO out there.

What would a sequel do exactly? That an expansion can't?

They only want to increase the graphics so much, they want as many computers as possible to be able to play the game.

 

[Magnus]

Very much so. Regardless of the anti GC propaganda the design for Cata to eliminate theorycrafting/the 'burden of knowledge' changed the game significantly.

It's been coasting on the fumes of its legacy since then.

There's no indication Blizzard will ever design a game with the knowledge-cap if release to wotlk era Wow again.

Considering the popularity of knowledge-intensive mobas it's become obvious that designing all mechanics towards the most casual of players is poison for player retention.

It's hilarious because casual-izing mechanics should have the opposite effect (removing esoteric and over-complicated things like expertise/hit/armor-pen/etc and simplifying other stats, for example, are all designed to just make things more accessible).

I for one, as a former hardcore player (and now casual/flex-ish) am super happy about simplifying things and removing barriers to entry. It supplements my playstyle perfectly. I realize it doesn't work for many people, though.

I'm honestly in it for the world, story, art/music/environments. WoW is a habit for me over the years (though I've let my sub lapse for a year, twice when life got busy). I love going back. It's a comfortable digital space for me, and I find the Blizzard aesthetic second-to-none. So even Pandaria was beautiful to me. I can't get enough of its soundtrack.

 

[Sophia]

WoW has gone through long stretches of light content before without experiencing drops this severe. The takeaway here is that Pandaria is a failure of an expansion that failed to retain its audience.

Well yeah. Why play World of Warcraft when Guild Wars 2 updates every two weeks? Why play when Final Fantasy XIV basically has a miniature expansion ever three months with a quality of life patch in between? They didn't have much in the way of competitors before. Lots of them crashed and burned under their own efforts (Age of Conan anyone?) Not so much now..

Another issue is the problem of the servers being underpopulated. Sure 6.8 million is still a pretty big number, but it's not quite that big a number when you take into account how many servers they have. I know I left my own server because it was basically dead, and not even their fancy idea of a server merge saved it.

 

[SteveWinwood]

NOTHING WOULD MAKE YOU HAPPIER WOULD IT

2016: ghostcrawler hired by valve

nooooooooooo

 

[Magnus]

What would a sequel do exactly? That an expansion can't?

They only want to increase the graphics so much, they want as many computers as possible to be able to play the game.

Yeah, I don't understand all the calls for a sequel. I get that it may entice a lot of people, but I think you might also alienate a lot of players who've invested a lot of time into their digital 'identities' in WoW - characters, gold, achievemens, etc. The expansions are the sequels.

That said, should WoW 2 ever actually happen - I'd hope they let people transition something over to the new game. Something more than just a title or cool looking armor or something.

I wonder if they'd ever simply relaunch WoW as WoW 2 with a dramatically modernized engine/skin, which would allow people to either use the WoW 1 or 2 client depending on their computer strength?

 

[Rezae]

So what other MMO's have ever achieved 6.8 million subscribers?

It's fading but still an insame number.

 

[Authority]

Think we'll ever see a WoW2?

Nope. Blizzard is not the Blizzard you once knew.

 

[perfectsil]

from the earnings report

that's still a lot, WoW is 20% of Activision's revenue (the "online" part above), more than next-gen consoles revenue combined

 

[Bizazedo]

WoW has gone through long stretches of light content before without experiencing drops this severe. The takeaway here is that Pandaria is a failure of an expansion that failed to retain its audience.

I don't see how that can be a takeaway when this is going to be the longest drought, ever, between the final raid / content and an expansion.

 

[SteveWinwood]

Nope. Blizzard is not the Blizzard you once knew.

yeah i figured that one out a few years ago

 

[Mechazawa]

It's absolutely insane to me that WoW peaked as late as 2010.

I thought the game peaked around Burning Crusade, which is just as insane to me given that most games peak at launch.

 

[Ikuu]

Oh god only 6.8 million people paying $12-15 a month. Truly a dead game.

Not all of the 6.8m are paying a monthly fee.

 

[Rhaknar]

Maybe they should stop talking about how they need to stop having giant year-long content gaps, and then doing it anyways.

nailed it. I cant wait for Warlords, but I havent been subbed since january or something

 

[TheChaos0]

Oh yeah, they are fixing that for Warlords of Draenor

I might just play WoD just because of this, for a bit. The scaling was getting silly, so was the amount of CC, instant casts (due to increasing interupts and CC) in PVP. I hear they are addressing those two points as well. But I've heard them talk about "wounded" state back when Cataclysm was announced... that didn't work out the way they were saying.

 

[SneakyStephan]

A year of barely any updates will do that.

Back playing and loving it as much as ever, though, personally speaking.

MoP is a stellar expansion from a content, art/music, and accessibility/quality-of-life point if view.

What changed quality of life wise? (haven't played since the cata beta)

 

[dmr87]

Just re-subbed, gonna go up again with WoD.

 

[Mechanized]

Blizzard really needs to get on that plan to release new content more frequently after WoD launches or its just gonna keep going down.

 

[mysteriousmage09]

Game should be a fraction of that for how they treat the game now days. It does please me to see it under BC numbers though.

 

[Arkam]

Such an impressive run. Cannot believe the game still has so many users.Blizzard has done and amazing job of slowing the decline past peak.

 

[mnannola]

What would a sequel do exactly? That an expansion can't?

They only want to increase the graphics so much, they want as many computers as possible to be able to play the game.

I mean I guess that goes for every game. Why have a diablo 3 when they could just release expansions to Diablo 2? Why aren't we all still playing Ultima Online?

I would like to see the MMO genre advanced, which I don't believe has happened a whole lot since WoW took over. I would like a WoW with brand new gaming concepts, a shiny new engine, and a rethink of how a MMORPG should be. They have played it safe for too long.

Unfortunately, they are able to play it safe because of a lack of meaningful competition. I guess I can't really fault them for it, just wish things were different. Nothing will change until a game comes out that steals WoW's lunch money.

 

[Into]

I might just play WoD just because of this, for a bit. The scaling was getting silly, so was the amount of CC, instant casts (due to increasing interupts and CC) in PVP. I hear they are addressing those two points as well. But I've heard them talk about "wounded" state back when Cataclysm was announced... that didn't work out the way they were saying.

Yeah the numbers got out of hand, they admitted as such. I think what ive seen of Beta numbers look good and managable

 

[MedIC86]

I believe it still did a billion dollars in revenue last year.

 

[Fjordson]

This, for the most part, hits the nail on the head. I was practically a lifer ever since closed beta of WoW 1.0 and Cataclysm ruined it for me. I can't nail any one factor down above the rest, but 90% of my time in cataclysm just felt like such a fucking chore. I'd have over an hour of dailies each day just to keep raid-ready and it just felt like everything was so fucking expensive.

I finally realized that I was wasting time being frustrated in Cataclysm and not having fun in other non-mmo games that were very gratifying for the time spent.

I avoided MoP at first because Cataclysm was just so awful, but once I tried it, I loved it. I thought Blizzard had learned their lesson, but I think Cataclysm couldn't have been a better title for that expansion because you could definitely see the... Cataclysmic effect that expac had on the series as a whole. Massively popular servers were literally ghost towns where PVP was impossible, economies sucked, forcing you to have to pay an additional huge fucking chunk of change to transfer server/faction, just reminding you of how much of a bad idea it was to re-sub.

Agreed. Catacylsm was the first time since release that I stopped playing for a significant length of time.

But Blizz really upped their game for Mists of Pandaria in my opinion. All the negativity when WoW is mentioned these days sort of surprises me since I honestly believe that MoP is easily the best expansion they've done since Burning Crusade. And in some ways is even better than BC.

Hang on. You didn't like Cataclysm because it had daily grinds but liked MoP? Are you sure you aren't getting them mixed up?

MoP certainly ain't perfect, and the daily grind was certainly bad, but overall it was an incredible expansion. Shits on Cata from a great height.

 

[SargerusBR]

6.8 million for a MMO that didn't have any updates for almost a year is impressive.

 

[CassSept]

That graph is completely off, Ghostcrawler was hired in early 2008 and was already incredibly active during WotLK beta. Hilarious how some try to blame everything on him.

 

[Epic Drop]

I played from early vanilla through the middle of Cataclysm before I got completely burned out. I re-subbed about a month ago with a few friends with the intention of playing through the MoP content casually, and so far, we are having an absolute blast.

Maybe it's just nostalgia talking, but speaking as someone who hasn't had to experience the nearly year long content drought, the game seems to be in pretty great shape. I'm hoping to clear the MoP zones in time for WoD, and I'm looking forward to playing through WoD.

They probably won't keep me as a long term subscriber though, I just don't have time to raid seriously or pvp competitively any more.

 

[TheContact]

A year of barely any updates will do that.

Back playing and loving it as much as ever, though, personally speaking.

MoP is a stellar expansion from a content, art/music, and accessibility/quality-of-life point if view.

Seriously. They have the resources to make new content more often than what they're doing now. Even if it's new daily quests or small zones, they'd keep a lot of their subs if they regularly updated content

 

[Magnus]

What changed quality of life wise? (haven't played since the cata beta)

Account wide achievements, mounts and pets
LFD/LFR/Flex making more content accessible to more people who have less time
Catch up mechanics for returning and newly boosted players (the various Isles, Pandaria universal resource nodes, Ink trading, etc)
Boosts for alts repeating content or grinds their mains have been through
Multi-enemy looting
The level 90 boost (this is subjective; I say it's a quality of life boost because I want to experience alts without grinding to 90 again - 100 hours of playtime back to me is far more valuable than a mere $60)
Teleports around the world are more common than ever (again, time returned to you)
Heirlooms and guild perks to speed up flying, flight paths, xp gain, profession levelling, etc, which I think all generally return time to you and work against frustration
PvE/PvP gear mechanic changes, to making going from one to the other easier
Wider variety than ever of things to do, to accommodate schedules and avoid waiting: Scenarios (no tanks/healers needed), pvp, dungeons/raids, proving grounds and unique solo quests like the warlock green fire chain (solo instanced content), challenge modes (super challenging 5man timed content), farms/archaeology, pet battling (which I'm told is like a whole game within a game), etc

And frankly, aside from the annoying grind, I personally think the concept of the Legendary quest line all expansion long was a massive success. Any player of even medium skill levels could take part and see one long story all expansion long, instead of being left out and unable to experience the central storyline of the game. I know many friends back in the day who were annoyed that either their skill level or schedules (or both) prevented them from being part of big events and stories like Illidan, the Lich King, etc. That doesn't happen anymore. The legendary quest line brought disparate elements of the expansion together and managed to unify them (albeit not perfectly) into one whole that left an impression, and left a player with a significant/awesome reward.

I'm desperately trying not to sound like Blizzard PR here. I really do think MoP knocked tons out of the park, though.

If Blizzard had launched WoD in a timely fashion, say, April of this year (with 6.0 in March), MoP would be remembered extremely fondly. Instead, people will remember the year-long dearth of content, which is a real shame, and a big failing on blizzard's part. These content gaps are doing some irreparable damage, as far as I'm concerned. They'll mean the difference between 8 and 9 million subs when WoD arrives IMO.

 

[Shosai]

I mean I guess that goes for every game. Why have a diablo 3 when they could just release expansions to Diablo 2? Why aren't we all still playing Ultima Online?

I would like to see the MMO genre advanced, which I don't believe has happened a whole lot since WoW took over. I would like a WoW with brand new gaming concepts, a shiny new engine, and a rethink of how a MMORPG should be. They have played it safe for too long.

Unfortunately, they are able to play it safe because of a lack of meaningful competition. I guess I can't really fault them for it, just wish things were different. Nothing will change until a game comes out that steals WoW's lunch money.

EverQuest had a sequel, called EverQuest 2. To this date, it has less players than EverQuest 1. Why? Because it was a similar game with better graphics and a fraction of the content. MMOs live an die by their content, players don't quit their subs over graphics.

MMO's have massive initial investments, making any sequel more expensive than standard games. Plus, there's nothing of value that can be done in a sequel that can't be regulated to an expansion. PLUS, releasing a sequel would cause a large migration of subscribers away from their previous MMO, making it a zero-sum game.

Also, WoW has had competition. There's been several times when new MMOs came along with more advanced engines, graphics, and gameplay concepts. But people stopped playing Age of Conan and RIFT after the first 30 days, because they lacked content. So they always went back to WoW.

 

[silvermember]

Oh god only 6.8 million people paying $12-15 a month. Truly a dead game.

Sorry buddy but probably only half of that number most likely plays for a sub. The other half are in China and they don't play a sub, they pay per hour.

 

[Fjordson]

Seriously. They have the resources to make new content more often than what they're doing now. Even if it's new daily quests or small zones, they'd keep a lot of their subs if they regularly updated content

Yeah, this is the one big issue that I hope they can address in Warlords. While I love MoP, it still continued the trend of a content drought leading into the next expansion. Leveling alts and fooling around with old solo stuff for mounts and whatnot has kept me interested, but I'd imagine people who focus on one or two mains are feeling pretty burned out by now. Siege of Org has been out a long time.

 

[KernelPanic]

What would a sequel do exactly? That an expansion can't?

They only want to increase the graphics so much, they want as many computers as possible to be able to play the game.

You can revamp the gameplay, less themepark moving from hub to hub and collecting exclamation mark to kill 10 rats nearby.

Maybe move on from tab targeting, add a more action oriented combat system a la Wildstar/GW2

I don't know .. .evolve the game to beyond grinding quests, rep, heroics, raids with the same mechanics you've seen in the last several years.

 

[OverturePT]

Incredible man, so many years after and this gold mine is still going. I know it has been dropping and dropping but I can't stop being amazed by how much fucking cash they're making with this game.

 

[Kuni]

Almost 7 million paying subs and 10 years old? That's bloody insane!

This is just standard atrophy of course. It will head downwards overall now until the end (in many years it seems).

No king rules forever, my son.

 

[Shosai]

You can revamp the gameplay, less themepark moving from hub to hub and collecting exclamation mark to kill 10 rats nearby.

Maybe move on from tab targeting, add a more action oriented combat system a la Wildstar/GW2

They probably will, once Wildstar or GW2 gets nearly as many subscribers.

 

[The Lamonster]

Not surprised, there hasn't been any new content since September 2013...

 

[arab]

it's all ogre now

 

[Buft]

The biggest surprise to me was that the highest ever numbers are end of WOTLK/start of Cataclysm. Seemed at the time that people here dropping off in droves, at least on Aggrammar EU.

 

[silvermember]

They probably will, once Wildstar or GW2 gets nearly as many subscribers.

I honestly doubt Wildstar could get those numbers especially given the quality of the game. guild wars 2 certainly isn't going to be that high either.

Secondly, the age of getting millions of subs is at the end. WOW came out at a perfect time where the was no real competition and thanks to some clever marketing with the help of south park, blew up to the giant it is in the WEST. added: personally, WOW staying so long on the top is probably because a lot of players have invested years into their toons, so leaving is hard. Other another reason being their "friends" still play the game, so they stick with it.

Today? We have so many hundreds of choices with some "free" from Mobas to MMORPG. It is a similar effect of why extremely few shows finale every reach the same series finale as M.A.S.H.

 

[Suzushiiro]

While I believe it's total coincidence, I am almost willing to guarantee that League of Legends will decline in popularity in the coming years. Guess who was just hired by Riot?

Yeah, in both cases it's just because he came on around those games' peaks. WoW declined because it was old and LoL is going to decline because it's old and other games (DOTA2, HotS) are going to take some of its market share.

Regardless, I think 6.4 million people still paying to play it is pretty good for a ten year-old game. And I think the fact that it's down to half of its peak has very little to do with anyone's pet issue(s) with the game.

 

[Trickster]

Almost 7 million paying subs and 10 years old? That's bloody insane!

This is just standard atrophy of course. It will head downwards overall now until the end (in many years it seems).

No king rules forever, my son.

Eh, it's definitely not only standard atrophy. Blizzard are also doing an incredibly terrible job at maintaining the game. There hasnt been a proper content patch for the game in like 9 months.

 

[mysteriousmage09]

So many people ignoring China.

 

[Cipherr]

You can revamp the gameplay, less themepark moving from hub to hub and collecting exclamation mark to kill 10 rats nearby.

Maybe move on from tab targeting, add a more action oriented combat system a la Wildstar/GW2

I don't know .. .evolve the game to beyond grinding quests, rep, heroics, raids with the same mechanics you've seen in the last several years.

Why not just go play Wildstar and GW2, I have played both of those games and I don't really enjoy the combat. Choices are good, they don't need to try and do those other things.

They probably will, once Wildstar or GW2 gets nearly as many subscribers.

I think we should reaaaaaaaaaally wait until either of those games gets within spitting distance of these numbers before saying stuff like this. AFAIK only two other MMO's in the HISTORY of gaming have reached this many paying customers.

 

[Kosma]

I try wow every year now but cant get into it anymore. I just download it and walk around for an hour, havent really played since WOTLK.

If there ever is a vanilla server or tbc i will give it a go and sub.

 

[Suzushiiro]

The biggest surprise to me was that the highest ever numbers are end of WOTLK/start of Cataclysm. Seemed at the time that people here dropping off in droves, at least on Aggrammar EU.

There's always been people quitting, it's just that up until the game's peak for every one person who quit there was more than one new subscriber. Now everyone who could possibly be interested in playing WoW has already played it, so they're just losing people with no fresh blood to replace them.

 

[Shosai]

I honestly doubt Wildstar could get those numbers especially given the quality of the game. guild wars 2 certainly isn't going to be that high either.

Secondly, the age of getting millions of subs is at the end. WOW came out at a perfect time where the was no real competition and thanks to some clever marketing with the help of south park, blew up to the giant it is in the WEST.

Today? We have so many hundreds of choices with some "free" from Mobas to MMORPG. It is a similar effect of why extremely few shows finale every reach the same series finale as M.A.S.H.

There were plenty of other MMOs when WoW launched. EverQuest was the king of the genre. But WoW was designed from the start to be an EverQuest imitation with all the annoying qualities of EverQuest removed (dropping gear on death, party camps, long travel times, ninja looting, xp loss, killing field rabbits for 10 levels etc).

Before WoW, every MMO was an EverQuest clone, and then they became WoW clones