Cracks starting to show?

[Paelos]

Are there any readily referenceable numbers indicating an exodus? Are subscriber numbers really down?

Considering the time period. I don't think you will see concrete numbers until Q2 reports in August. The Q1 number will still have people who were paying but waiting for their subs to expire.

[Rokal]

Intended this response for the main Cata thread. But, to keep this on-topic:

The question isn't whether subs have gone down (they probably have), the question is whether the sub decrease is greater than it was after previous expansions.

[Khaldun]

My intuition is yeah, worse than previous xpacs. I suspect they track concurrent usage as much as subs, and that's where I see a really noticeable difference, there's just fewer people playing even at peak times, and particularly you get a sense that casual players are just not around. You might think that as long as they stay subbed, it's not a problem, but if I were Blizzard I would take the absence of players as a sign that the game is getting much less "sticky", much less likely to retain subscribers, and much more vulnerable to sudden 'tipping points' where many people just decide to give it up for good. And I think that Blizz's live team is very aware of this trend and is finding it alarming.

[Paelos]

My intuition is yeah, worse than previous xpacs. I suspect they track concurrent usage as much as subs, and that's where I see a really noticeable difference, there's just fewer people playing even at peak times, and particularly you get a sense that casual players are just not around. You might think that as long as they stay subbed, it's not a problem, but if I were Blizzard I would take the absence of players as a sign that the game is getting much less "sticky", much less likely to retain subscribers, and much more vulnerable to sudden 'tipping points' where many people just decide to give it up for good. And I think that Blizz's live team is very aware of this trend and is finding it alarming.

Their proposed design decisions on Firelands don't seem to indicate that, but it's too close in the cycle to determine is change is taking place. We'd probably have to see what their goals for 4.3 are, and if that is going to come out before Christmas.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I get the impression they are very panicky about subs but they can only change certain things with any kind of speed. I think blizzard themselves said design decisions were like turning a huge boat, you can give the common but it will take a while to respond.

The small things like the tank loot bag or the changes coming to crowd control are things id never imagine them doing and I still think zg and za got rushed out before they were originally planned to release.  Things like whole new raid dungeons are harder to do, they can't just make another raid in the same patch if 7 bosses isnt enough and I dont think adding more bosses is even that easy to do, so their kind of stuck with firelands as is.

[Paelos]

Hell they are talking about putting up 4.2 on the PTR like next week. They are definitely in full on rush mode. They are actually telling people about when they plan on doing stuff so they can test stuff.

Blizzard's never done that.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The more I think about it the more I think they were going to make ZG a raid again. It would have fit with their cataclysm design of have two smaller raid dungeons per tier and it was one of the old favorites. It wouldn't take much to tune it down to five man since they already had to have boss mechanics for ten mans in place.

[SurfD]

Eh, the only reall logistical complications between tuneing a dungeon for X number of players (5, 10, 15, 25, 40), is usually the number of Tanks needed / Wanted, and balancing the encounter around giving X number of Tanks something meaningful to do during the fights.  I mean, if you look at almost any 25 or 10 man raid, converting them to 5 man dungeons is primarily a matter of tweaking the boss mechanics to deal with 1 less tank then normal (no tank swaps, no adds that require an offtank, that kind of thing).

[Simond]

Hell they are talking about putting up 4.2 on the PTR like next week. They are definitely in full on rush mode. They are actually telling people about when they plan on doing stuff so they can test stuff.

Blizzard's never done that.

I'm just waiting for the "Hi! I'm the new named dev person! Ghostcrawler has moved across to our secret MMO project!" blog post. 

[Paelos]

Eh, the only reall logistical complications between tuneing a dungeon for X number of players (5, 10, 15, 25, 40), is usually the number of Tanks needed / Wanted, and balancing the encounter around giving X number of Tanks something meaningful to do during the fights.  I mean, if you look at almost any 25 or 10 man raid, converting them to 5 man dungeons is primarily a matter of tweaking the boss mechanics to deal with 1 less tank then normal (no tank swaps, no adds that require an offtank, that kind of thing).

TBH, that usually just means removing the ability that debuffs the tank. That's been their go-to. Lazy asses.

[SurfD]

Or in the case of the ZA heroics, removing things like the Saber Lash type attacks that required you to have 2 tanks standing infront of the boss at all times or the solo tank gets gibbed.

[Khaldun]

I certainly have noticed that the community reps on the forums have been unusually fawning and communicative all the sudden, so I think that's another sign of concern.

[Soulflame]

How did they change bear?  I remember you had to swap tanks because he stacked bleeds that would make him hit harder when he shifted.

I also remember some wipes because bear resisted paladin taunt.   

Good times, those.

[Rendakor]

His only mechanic now is that he charges whoever is furthest away and gives them a debuff; if they get charged again within 30s or so they'll get one shotted. He's also got an AoE silence, and that's about it. I've never done him in BC so I'm not sure what's changed.

[Soulflame]

I don't remember much other than spreading out to avoid the AE silence as much as possible, and the tank swapping.

He did used to charge, but I don't remember the second charge killing you.

[Rendakor]

Well it increases your damage taken by like 500% or something now, so each person is supposed to eat every 3rd charge.

[apocrypha]

Problem comes when you have, as I did last night, an all-melee DPS group, none of whom are willing to move away from the boss at all cos it'd hurt their numbers. This meant that the healer kept eating the charge. 

ZA/ZG seem to completely polarise groups that I've been in. Either the group has had almost no trouble and it's been fun or they've been unbearable slogs with wipe after wipe after wipe. No middle ground. If it was just down to gear I'd expect more grey areas groups, but it's completely binary.

[Ashamanchill]

My dream is a dungeon with mechanics that only affect healers and tanks, as they seem to be the only ones who care anyways.

[Shrike]

My dream is a dungeon with mechanics that only affect healers and tanks, as they seem to be the only ones who care anyways.

My dream is a dungeon where I don't have to put up with healers and tanks. Just a lot of mobs with tasty loot. Turn me loose!

[Ingmar]

My dream is a dungeon with mechanics that only affect healers and tanks, as they seem to be the only ones who care anyways.

My dream is a dungeon where I don't have to put up with healers and tanks. Just a lot of mobs with tasty loot. Turn me loose!

[Lakov_Sanite]

I was thinking the same thing

[Soulflame]

My first thought was Torchlight.

[WindupAtheist]

Fuck, I can already feel a bout of Diablo 2 coming on now.

[Ingmar]

Pindleskin beckons!

[Fordel]

I feel like I'm the only fucker on the planet that doesn't to ape shit over Diablo, it's like that part of my brain is just missing or something.

[Rasix]

I feel like I'm the only fucker on the planet that doesn't to ape shit over Diablo, it's like that part of my brain is just missing or something.

You've got company.  I did like Diablo and played through it a couple times.  I couldn't get into Diablo 2 at all.  I think I beat it once in total and that was when a lot of friends were playing and it was just out. 

Doesn't help that my arm just can't take that much clicking.  

[Ingmar]

I feel like I'm the only fucker on the planet that doesn't to ape shit over Diablo, it's like that part of my brain is just missing or something.

You've got company.  I did like Diablo and played through it a couple times.  I couldn't get into Diablo 2 at all.  I think I beat it once in total and that was when a lot of friends were playing and it was just out. 

Doesn't help that my arm just can't take that much clicking.  

I know some exercises that might work.

[Rokal]

Doesn't help that my arm just can't take that much clicking.  

I had this problem when I tried out Spiral Knights recently. Clicking constantly eventually started to agitate my finger. The problem went away when I plugged an xbox controller into my PC and used that instead. Pressing a button on a controller with your thumb seems to be less tiring than clicking a mouse button with your finger. Hopefully Diablo 3 has decent controller support.

[Merusk]

I feel like I'm the only fucker on the planet that doesn't to ape shit over Diablo, it's like that part of my brain is just missing or something.

Nope, you're not. Neither D1 or D2 grabbed me, nor have most of the other "action RPGs" I've tried over the years.  Torchlight was the only one I ever really enjoyed, but even that was only enough to beat the game.  I never went back after I got the first character past the last boss.

[SurfD]

Doesn't help that my arm just can't take that much clicking.  

I had this problem when I tried out Spiral Knights recently. Clicking constantly eventually started to agitate my finger. The problem went away when I plugged an xbox controller into my PC and used that instead. Pressing a button on a controller with your thumb seems to be less tiring than clicking a mouse button with your finger. Hopefully Diablo 3 has decent controller support.

Didn't Diablo have the "Hold down the mouse button to wail away on anything under the curser" functionality, or was that Torchlight?

[Rokal]

I think both did. But you were switching between abilities and regular attacks, so there was still a lot of clicking in each game. Spiral Knights was different in that you literally had to click each time to attack. I think both games probably would have been more fun with a controller though (or at least less tiring on your fingers). I haven't tried the XBLA version of Torchlight, but in theory it should show whether that style of combat is better with a mouse or a controller.

[Soulflame]

My eyes were magically drawn to the D2: LoD icon last night.  I also feel a bout of Diablo 2 coming on.

[Montague]

Just got an email from Blizzard offering 7 days of free time. WoW is mortal after all it seems.

[caladein]

Yeah, probably to show off ZA/ZG (or easier/much short queue heroics in general).  Also, same timing for the trial on the remote guild chat apps although they've been on "free preview" for a week or so already.

Pretty sure they had a free week right before Cata launched too.

[Merusk]

They've always done teasers at big patches to folks who have been unsubbed for a while.