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.
duh duh DUHHHHH
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.
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.
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.
NOTHING WOULD MAKE YOU HAPPIER WOULD IT
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.
Think we'll ever see a WoW2?
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.
Nope. Blizzard is not the Blizzard you once knew.
Oh god only 6.8 million people paying $12-15 a month. Truly a dead game.
Maybe they should stop talking about how they need to stop having giant year-long content gaps, and then doing it anyways.
Oh yeah, they are fixing that for Warlords of Draenor
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 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 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.
Agreed. Catacylsm was the first time since release that I stopped playing for a significant length of time.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.
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.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?
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)
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.
Oh god only 6.8 million people paying $12-15 a month. Truly a dead game.
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.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
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
They probably will, once Wildstar or GW2 gets nearly as many subscribers.
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?
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.
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.
They probably will, once Wildstar or GW2 gets nearly as many subscribers.
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.
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.