WoW Lost 600k Subscribers, down to 11.4MFollow

From MMO-Champion:



This isn't surprising.

More for me.

Really most of my old guild quit in late WotLK or early Cata for a variety of reasons from burn out, to kids growing up and stuff.

Not shocking. With the ****** queue times and the lack of effort on the part of most players, it's not surprising at all that people are quitting.

I hit a wall; I realized I'd been doing the same stuff for years now and it just wasn't fun anymore. Almost all of my friends have quit, and my brother was only logging on for raids (he's since stopped altogether).

Do they only work off of cancelled subs, or do they also count people like me who just let the game time lapse every few months?

The thread appears to have been nuked, and I don't remember if it was on the US or EU Druid board, but some poster theorized that the 5% subscribers lost were equal to the amount of subscribers playing Balance Druids.

He apparently used this decrease in subscribers as evidence that his Moonkin was broken or something.

I thought it was the Ret pallies that quit like me.

Personally I have mixed feelings.

I quit about 2 months ago, but have continued to follow the game. (Hoping for a reason to return)

There's one side of me that says, "Yeah, the damn thing is getting boring. I've killed X mobs and turned them into Y NPC's Z number of times... Let's move on... Where is the change. Where is the new-ness. A new background (Read: Zone) isn't changing the fact that in Vanilla, TBC, Wrath, Cata - I still basically did the same crap."

However, there is another side.... That side says, "Wow, RIFT wasn't that great. I mean it was ok, but I'm really not that excited. They basically took "Cartoon" Graphics (WOW) and replaced them with Quasi-real Graphic (RIFT). The story line is OK, but... Ummm Who gives a ****? So this world has some issues and **** falls from the sky occasionally... And... why am I concerned?"



In reality - I'm mad at Blizzard. They have F'd up my favorite pass-time. I fish (In real life) and I have a work softball team (Also in RL - for those of you with a WoW Softball team).... But WoW was my way to burn time. My wife watches stupid reality TV. I prefer to play something like WoW... Sadly it's the BEST game out there, but it has lost my interest. I'm not 100% sure why - But it has. They need to remedy this situation though...

I think alot of it is people simply don't like the changes to the game. I have really been unhappy since patch 4.0 when they nerfed ae threat generation for tanks and made healing miserable. Lvl 85 is just crappy right now for casual players, I am surprised more people didn't quit to be honest. I had enough time left to finish up my holiday events for proto drake, I don't plan to play for awhile.

I like how there solution is churn expansions out faster.. How about going back to how the game was in BC and WOTLK where both casuals and more hardcore players could both enjoy the game.

Eh, I dont know. People come and go all the time. Wow still have more subscribers than some country have people.
Still, I only log for raids right now and play Rift in the meanwhile.
Waiting for D3 right now, finished portal2 and Dragon Age 2.

I see 3 problems with the game right now that aren't patchable.

1) It sounds cliche but it's true - you get out what you put in. One of the main mechanics of MMO's addictiveness is that the player invests so much into their character(s). Back in EQ days, even getting to level 50 or having a set of armor that matched was a huge accomplishment in-and-of-itself. This game, though, despite all the moanin' and groanin' about how hard it is to gear up, is far too quick and takes far too little time.

2) End game badass-ness factor has been eradicated... somehow. Basically, in previous expansions the level of difficulty was lower for most intents-and-purposes, but the payoff seemed more epic. Not only in raids, but in dungeons, and even PVP. Somehow, accomplishments have been reduced across the board. In fact, the only place that factor still exists is in Questing. Unfortunately, people fly through quests so fast that it goes right over their heads.

3) Homogenization has ruined a lot of flavor in the game. There are certain things I cannot complain so much about, but most of the signature spells of classes have been reduced to a bland amalgamation of other classes spells, which are all then made to be on equal playing ground and not stack. You can get every buff and CD needed for 25 man raids with, what, 5-7 players maybe? Sure it's nice for 10s, but honestly... this is NOT something to help players. Its to make it easier to balance for the designers. It's boring. And what's funny is that much of the game still isn't balanced. Certain classes are far easier to play than others, and often times those easier classes are simply more fun to play.

That being said, I'm still here. I've solved problem one by having 3 'mains.' I've invested in each of them time for different goals, very few of which are accomplished, so at least its something to keep playing for. For number 2, I and guild mates/group mates/etc simply do stupid things during encounters to make them funnier. Barring very few raid bosses and a good portion of ZG/ZA, screwin' around is a perfectly good way to solve the badass factor, as you're adding your own flavor to the encounters by doing horribly stupid things. Homogenization is still a plague on the game and I very much hope to see classes diversify again... somehow.

You know, that's a very good point. I don't interact with anyone on my server except for my guildies 99% of the time (other than my bf E of course). I hadn't really thought of it before, but I talk about how awesome Proudmoore is as a sever, and I really have no idea since I don't know anyone outside the guild.

The LFD tool is great as you level, and it can definitely be convenient since you don't have to sit in the city while waiting to get a group together. But it definitely might be worth looking in to trying to make some friends outside the guild. =x

Beat me to it, but yeah. Druids are pretty miserable AoE tankers pre 81 when you get thrash.

Second, I realize the LFG tool causes people to disassociate themselves from the people they're randomly placed with because chances are you'll never see them again, but it's a necessary evil. As an MMO progresses less and less people do content like reg dungeons. I remember pre LFG tool it wouldn't be uncommon for me to spend an hour and a half trying to get a group together for say...wailing caverns.

I've also recently quit, more down to boredom I think than anything else. I just seemed to log-on on raid nights and log off afterwards, because there was not much else for me to do. I kinda knew the writing was on the wall while I was levelling my alts to 85, I just wasn't enjoying it.

I was the last of my RL friends left playing, some core members of the guild stopped playing, and you could see how the realm was beginning to quieten down. I won't be included in those stats because I unsubbed the following month, so it should be interesting to see what the next quarter figures will be like.

And, looking at the 4.2 patch, I won't be coming back for that. Grinding dailies is not my idea of fun, or wanting the legendary from Firelands, because it will just be more of the same, log-on for raid, then log straight off again.

Personally, I'm not even sure why this expansion hasn't seemed as good as the last two, TBC or WotLK (for all its faults).

Maybe Cataclysm just didn't have enough content for lvl85's, with most of the work going on the 1-60 content that most lvl85 mains aren't concerned with, unless levelling an alt from scratch or for new players.

No new continent this time, the new quest areas weren't that impressive nor were the quests. No group quests at all. Apart from JC, the dailies were over pretty quickly too.

Professions were quite bland, including the worse one ever, Archaeology....

I did like the difficulty of the 5mans before the nerfs, but I don't think there was enough of them. I dont't think bribing players with Call to Arms was a good idea either, because to me the queue times are down to game design if nothing else. If Blizzard wanted group play in 5mans/heroics a better experience in a guild group, wtf did they think the unguilded players were gonna do?

Flying mounts in Azeroth, only allows for quicker levelling and not really seeing all the hard work they put into updating the old areas. Fly in, do quest, fly out....