a not so grand last hurrah

[Miasma]

Well to be fair, blizzard is very, very rich but the game has been declining at a steady and surprisingly fast pace. I know people just want to say attrition and pretend nothing else is the cause but clearly some things are not being handled well.

Their numbers got hit hard with that hardcore shit they tried to pull at the start of cata but then went back up after they backed off and released lfr.  When was the last time you even played WoW?

[Paelos]

Your complaint is one of an older generation of games. It works the same as it ever did, you can still friend that guy who was awesome in LFR or LFg and do raids and dungeons with him just as easily as before.  The stickiness is the same, spread-out across more servers with different tools for social sticiness.

If you can't find people to socialize with, it's your fault, not LFR's.

If that was the case, the game wouldn't have lost 50% of the xpac release sub bump in the first three months. It's NOT AS STICKY. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

They connect the same way they do in other games and social media.  Blizzard is shifting to that paradigm with battle tags and cross-realm raiding.  Or did you miss those additions?   How did you meet the people you liked in your guild in the first place?  

Your complaint is one of an older generation of games. It works the same as it ever did, you can still friend that guy who was awesome in LFR or LFg and do raids and dungeons with him just as easily as before.  The stickiness is the same, spread-out across more servers with different tools for social sticiness.

If you can't find people to socialize with, it's your fault, not LFR's.

Except you can't cross-realm guild and you won't want to cross-realm friend someone you barely know.  No I'm not some relic of elder gaming and I'm perfectly fine with the game being more open except it's not, it's a half-assed job that cuts people off more than opens them up.You're saying it's MORE sticky? Now I just think you're talking out your ass and defending any accusation against the game with blinding fanboyism.  

There are a lot of things you can say to defend wow but to say it's even more sticky and compelling than ever is jut batshit crazy territory. "Social Media" is such a bullshit term, people have not changed in the last 10 years, we are not as humans magically changed by the advent of facebook and no longer want for community. You simply cannot form communities in a game where you are never with a person for more than 30min and then never again.

Look at games like league of legends.  Now how do you think a game like that forms its communities? it's certainly not within the game.  Yes you may get a friend request or two through the normal course of play but the majority of it happens outside the game, through forums or connections forged elsewhere.

Why doesn't this apply to wow? Why can't you form outside connections?  Well the short answer is you can.  Except that for a game like wow, the amount of time spent sitting around in forums or just chatting with friends is a lot shorter but that's not really the point.

All the connections you can make online and for other games still apply for wow right now and the game will never want for that.  What is IS missing however is that extra layer on top, the communities forged IN the game which are stronger than the transient nature of online friends list like steam/xbox/etc.

Big guilds are dying, the reasons for people to log on are diminishing and the attachment people feel to their characters is disappearing.

FWIW I played the game up until the first pandaria patch or so.  

[Merusk]

Your complaint is one of an older generation of games. It works the same as it ever did, you can still friend that guy who was awesome in LFR or LFg and do raids and dungeons with him just as easily as before.  The stickiness is the same, spread-out across more servers with different tools for social sticiness.

If you can't find people to socialize with, it's your fault, not LFR's.

If that was the case, the game wouldn't have lost 50% of the xpac release sub bump in the first three months. It's NOT AS STICKY.  

THE PANDA EXPANSION IS SHITTY AND NOT FUN TO PLAY BEYOND THE FIRST 3 MONTHS.

I can do caps to. We had a whole thread on MoP and that was the consensus.  "Fun to start, shitty for alts. They should fix that."  Surpsise sub drop is now due to stickiness not mentioned? har.

[Lakov_Sanite]

As far as content goes it's 100x better than cataclysm, factions aside it's some of the best content they've added.

People tend to forget the absolute shit faction grinds of vanilla that people somehow still did. It's not because it was more fun, it's not because vanilla/bc raiding was GOOD that people kept logging on every day.

It's only when you take off the varnish of a community do you start to see the glaring cracks in gameplay.

[Fabricated]

The Argent Dawn stuff was fucking awful and it was the most friendly rep-grind in the Vanilla since you could max it out by slaughtering non-elite undead.

[Paelos]

THE PANDA EXPANSION IS SHITTY AND NOT FUN TO PLAY BEYOND THE FIRST 3 MONTHS.

Surpsise sub drop is now due to stickiness not mentioned? har.

Uh, yeah that's exactly why the subs dropped. The expansion's non-daily content isn't bad. The leveling was fun, the dungeons were good, and the raids are nice. The reason people aren't sticking around is because they don't like dailies, the don't like factions, and they don't have friends keeping them involved in the raiding game.

But that's not stickiness? I'm not sure I understand your point. You're sort of falling into a Rokal-esque trap here. Having options that are shitty means you have no options. Also, someone coming into the game and making friends is way different than someone coming in 3 years ago or more and having to redo their social network.

[Rokal]

The content designed for you and friends, as opposed to random strangers, still exists in the game. That's what I don't get about your complaints. What you're saying is "there is no content designed for me and my  friends to overcome anymore" when what you actually mean is "my friends don't want to do the content designed for an organized group anymore because they're satisfied with the boring/easy version". And frankly, why should they be forced to? It sucks that your friends aren't interested in the content in the game that actually encourages community-building and forging relationships, but the only thing stopping you from finding a group of people that do is you.

I say this as someone playing on your server that is constantly seeing guilds that seem like they are full of fun, average players, recruiting.

[Paelos]

I don't disagree with anything you said, except for why you don't understand how people who've played for 6 years with the same people might find the idea of making new friends in WoW not the ideal scenario.

My friends left for the most part because the game moved on without them, the ones that are left want to do the easy stuff. That's all true. What I've been trying to explain is a bit of the why they moved on, why I moved on even over and beyond my friends moving on, and where the game was when that shift started to occur. The reason I look at Wrath as the pinnacle of the content, is it's the last time I can point to the game having everyone around and having fun.

The ancillary evidence is that since then, subs have done nothing but drop. We can debate the causes, but it's going to be a bunch of things and not one singular thing. One thing we can agree on is that WoW was never more successful financially than at that point, and that the things they have tried have not provided them with the rebound back to that era.

[Miasma]

We're all old enough by now that we've had real life friends get married, have kids and then one day you realize you haven't talked to them in six months and that they're probably gone for good.  Expecting weaker virtual friendships based on a video game to last a long time is madness.  It's not the game's fault people drift apart, that's just social entropy.  If blizzard had never changed a single mechanic since wrath and done nothing but create more content at their slow pace people would have still left and your guilds would have still fallen apart.  It's been almost five god damn years since wrath released, people move on, so you either replace them with new friends or move on yourself.

[Azazel]

As someone who's never been in a raid guild (nor do I want to be in one), I'll say that LFR has been a godsend. If you're complaining about boringness / lack of challenge, play a healer. 

There's a reason my warrior plays LFR as DPS. I don't care about LFR or the randoms in them enough to care enough to play at my best or anything approximating it anymore. I don't mind a lack of challenge. I just literally get bored out of my head during the long painful boss fights.

I guess, although the tier 10 and 11 numbers each have a year of data whereas t14 has eight months.  Extrapolating would still be a decline though.  It also goes by entire guild instead of groups so there would be knock on effects from the guild perk system cata brought in.  

My current L25 guild actually has 4 10-man groups, so if it's tracking by guild numbers rather than raid numbers, the thing will be rather skewed.

[Paelos]

Subs dropped to 8.3M in WoW after Q1. That's a drop of 1.3M from the prior quarter.

This expansion is not working.

[Ingmar]

Old game is old, that's really the only conclusion to draw safely.

EDIT: Also was interesting to read that D3 sales were apparently still strong in Q1 of this year. That's a long tail for sure.

[Pezzle]

Let me know when you get walrus people and they have a super tusk charge.  Maybe turtle people like Gamera, but I doubt there would be an awesome spinning shell attack.  I suppose elephant seal people, but they would just headbutt you or fall on you with their immense bodies. 

[Lantyssa]

The turtle people will be ninja, duh.

[Ratman_tf]

The problem with LFD/LFR is coming up amongst my former guildmates. Seems a bunch of people left because LFR/LFD killed guild groups.
It's the reason I left during Cata, and didn't even pick up Mists.

[Paelos]

The problem with LFD/LFR is coming up amongst my former guildmates. Seems a bunch of people left because LFR/LFD killed guild groups.
It's the reason I left during Cata, and didn't even pick up Mists.

I think that is more common than people realize, and the reason I don't like LFR.

[Simond]

Subs dropped to 8.3M in WoW after Q1. That's a drop of 1.3M from the prior quarter.

This expansion is not working.

Bearing in mind you've already said that the real reason you don't like WoW any more is that your guild imploded and you've not been able/willing to find a new one, I'm not quite sure how any expansion would help you.

The more important part is the feedback about 'casual' engagement (or lack thereof) so expect TBC2 to do completely the opposite to MoP re: dailies, factions, etc.

[Paelos]

Subs dropped to 8.3M in WoW after Q1. That's a drop of 1.3M from the prior quarter.

This expansion is not working.

Bearing in mind you've already said that the real reason you don't like WoW any more is that your guild imploded and you've not been able/willing to find a new one, I'm not quite sure how any expansion would help you.

The more important part is the feedback about 'casual' engagement (or lack thereof) so expect TBC2 to do completely the opposite to MoP re: dailies, factions, etc.

Oh I found a new one. I even played with it for 3 months of expansion. As usual, you draw the wrong conclusions from the facts. They lost me though, because the game didn't encourage me doing stuff with that already maxxed out lvl 25 guild, and the new guild was only interested in doing LFR on tuesdays. Now, I could have found a new NEW guild at that point after getting to 90 and tried to get into the raiding game, but that was even blocked by the rep grind stuff. Or I could have played alts, but that problem has been discussed as well.

I would have been just fine for another 3 months in the new guild if LFR didn't exist, and the stuff wasn't blocked behind rep gains, dailies weren't considered content, and they generally didn't act like adding more factions was the path to enlightenment.

That's the point. I wasn't just some guys who quit 2 years ago and said, FUCK OFF BLIZZ I LOST MY BOYS! I was actually playing this xpac for a quarter, and they lost me again.

[Malakili]

How many subs did they have before Panderia hit?  I mean, it seems quite possible that there is some core of WoW players who will keep playing no matter what and that otherwise the new WoW expansions are going to be subject to the same kind of 3 month wonder phenomenon we've seen in every other MMORPG of late.

[Simond]

Subs dropped to 8.3M in WoW after Q1. That's a drop of 1.3M from the prior quarter.

This expansion is not working.

Bearing in mind you've already said that the real reason you don't like WoW any more is that your guild imploded and you've not been able/willing to find a new one, I'm not quite sure how any expansion would help you.

The more important part is the feedback about 'casual' engagement (or lack thereof) so expect TBC2 to do completely the opposite to MoP re: dailies, factions, etc.

Oh I found a new one. I even played with it for 3 months of expansion. As usual, you draw the wrong conclusions from the facts. They lost me though, because the game didn't encourage me doing stuff with that already maxxed out lvl 25 guild, and the new guild was only interested in doing LFR on tuesdays. Now, I could have found a new NEW guild at that point after getting to 90 and tried to get into the raiding game, but that was even blocked by the rep grind stuff. Or I could have played alts, but that problem has been discussed as well.

I would have been just fine for another 3 months in the new guild if LFR didn't exist, and the stuff wasn't blocked behind rep gains, dailies weren't considered content, and they generally didn't act like adding more factions was the path to enlightenment.

That's the point. I wasn't just some guys who quit 2 years ago and said, FUCK OFF BLIZZ I LOST MY BOYS! I was actually playing this xpac for a quarter, and they lost me again.

What reps are blocking you?

[Paelos]

How many subs did they have before Panderia hit?  I mean, it seems quite possible that there is some core of WoW players who will keep playing no matter what and that otherwise the new WoW expansions are going to be subject to the same kind of 3 month wonder phenomenon we've seen in every other MMORPG of late.

Roughly 9.3 million before the expac was released, I believe. The fact it had a bump was normal. The fact it dropped largely below the prior record low was the shock to investors.

[Paelos]

What reps are blocking you?

I didn't finish the Golden Lotus stuff, but I opened the other two factions, and then didn't finish them. I didn't do any of the Shieldwall stuff, because I got frustrated and quit after that came out. It's not so much about them blocking the rewards on the main, but the shaman alt where i'd do it again. That and I was burned on dailies for collecting points.

I think the only ones I go exalted in were the Klaxxi and the Anglers, mostly because I focused on Klaxxi for smithing stuff.

Once I got bored trying to grind dailies for points along with LFR/LFD, I spent a while doing the pet stuff. Then I thought about leveling my shaman that I had in late Cata, but the thought of doing more reps put that to bed.

I think I would be just fine dicking around every couple of weeks with something frivolous like pets or a few quests or fishing (I really liked fishing), if the game wasn't sub based. I hold D3 to a much lower standard for that reason.

[Simond]

So getting rep with a bunch of obsolete factions is holding you back?

"Between all of these sources, an adventurous player should be should be able to walk right into the Raid Finder Throne of Thunder within a week or two of hitting level 90, even without touching any of the mainland reputations."

[luckton]

So getting rep with a bunch of obsolete factions is holding you back?

"Between all of these sources, an adventurous player should be should be able to walk right into the Raid Finder Throne of Thunder within a week or two of hitting level 90, even without touching any of the mainland reputations."

That's been pretty much par for the course with every xpac for WoW.  Post launch patch content makes launch content optional.  I don't get the rep whining thing.

[Paelos]

Oh you mean I get to do LFR more to gear up? HOORAY! 

I guess me saying I hated that particular feature and wanted it gone on every page got by you.

[luckton]

Oh you mean I get to do LFR more to gear up? HOORAY! 

I guess me saying I hated that particular feature and wanted it gone on every page got by you.

Heroic scenarios and new 5-mans?   

[Lakov_Sanite]

"You have lost 1.3 million subscribers because the game is to time consuming for us casuals. Bring back tabards. Dailies suck"


"We heard from A LOT of players in Cataclysm that they didn't have enough to do and got bored. It's a tough sweet spot to hit."

This is a very telling twitter quote in the that response to having more things to do = dailies.

[Paelos]

It was the lowest cost thing they could do to claim they were putting out more content.

[SurfD]

"You have lost 1.3 million subscribers because the game is to time consuming for us casuals. Bring back tabards. Dailies suck"


"We heard from A LOT of players in Cataclysm that they didn't have enough to do and got bored. It's a tough sweet spot to hit."

This is a very telling twitter quote in the that response to having more things to do = dailies.

That is reading a LOT into that twitter quote.  The quote itself mentioned nothing to do with dailys.  And besides, the issue isnt really dailys anyway. The issue (because of the tabards comment) is lack of variable ways to earn rep.  If they attached possible rep gains to pet battles, or something, you would probably hear a lot less bitching.

overall, the big gripe about Mysts was gear was gated behind rep too heavily (which the devs appear to have learned from), and there was only ONE way to get rep (dailys, which again, the devs appear to have learned from).  Dont try to make it seem like blizzard's response to "more to do" was "lol add dailys".   There was a LOT more shit added then just dailys, but people ignored it because it didnt help them get rep to get gated items.

[Paelos]

The heroic scenarios idea seems like the first good idea they've had in the patches so far. The rest of it prior to 5.3 was just cramming new dailies down people's throats with new factions and new zones, while adding one raid.

[Rokal]

The heroic scenarios idea seems like the first good idea they've had in the patches so far. The rest of it prior to 5.3 was just cramming new dailies down people's throats with new factions and new zones, while adding one raid.

The two big patches so far have also added...

Brawlers Guild
Void Upgrades
6+ new scenarios
New Pets/Legendary Trainers
Two world bosses
An optional island for cosmetic mounts and battle pets
A bunch of balance changes/some new abilities

And yes, a new 13-boss raid zone and two daily hubs. Both dailies hubs were a mixed bag, with 5.1's daily hub being a pretty small/simple experience but having great pacing and story, and 5.2's daily hub being a much larger experience with optional parts (rare spawns, group bosses, lorewalker stuff, etc.) but having terrible pacing (Golden Lotus version 2) and a lame story. You can't write them off as nothing though, they're pretty substantial patches especially when compared with the rest of the patches in WoW's history. Most of the previous patch updates in older expansions were reserved for raiders with little or no patch content for anyone else, aside from balance changes. In MoP there is a huge effort for each patch to contain solo content, but unfortunately for WoW that mostly means daily quests which have certainly gotten better in MoP but are still pretty awful.

I'm going to say the same thing I said for Cata: large subscription drops aren't unusual for a game as old as WoW. I don't know what expansion you're imagining that you believe would have grown the subscriber numbers instead of shrinking them.

[Merusk]

They lost me before most of that went in and I was one of the last holdouts.  Brawler's guild and the warfront daily hub were the last things I saw.  The addition of more daily grinds on top of daily grinds for reps I hadn't maxed on top of those same exact grinds once I hit cap with an alt killed it for me.

I burned out trying to do Klaxxi again on the rogue and realized I still had the Priest, DK and Shaman to go. Fuck the game for not being alt-friendly anymore.  Yeah, plenty of things to do at cap, too bad wanting more than one viable character means far too much time invested.

[Paelos]

Rokal, the Mists expansion bumped the sub base by over a million. What I expected was for them to hold 50% that number for 6 months. It shouldn't be that difficult to keep those subscribers entertained for that period of time, with a couple of patches, and it's been done well in the past.

Instead, not only did they lose 100% of that subscriber bump, they shed another 10% of the total sub base from before the xpac launched. If you have LFR and you want raids to be the new thing instead of 5 mans, release them. In Wrath, you had 3 big patches, with 3 new raids. In Cata, you had 3 big patches with 2 raids. Now we're about to have the third big patch in Mists and it's only one raid and scenarios replacing 5 mans?

It just seems like less and less meat with more and more filler. If they want people doing LFR as their primary goal, they need to focus on raids as the content.

[Rokal]

In Wrath, you had 3 big patches, with 3 new raids. In Cata, you had 3 big patches with 2 raids. Now we're about to have the third big patch in Mists and it's only one raid and scenarios replacing 5 mans?

It just seems like less and less meat with more and more filler. If they want people doing LFR as their primary goal, they need to focus on raids as the content.

We're going to get a second patch raid in for the form of Siege of Orgrimmar in a few months after 5.3. I don't think much of the playerbase is ready for a new raid so soon after ToT, so what would the benefit be of releasing more raid content right now? ToT is massive and I haven't heard any complaints about the quality of the zone or the fights.

The Wrath and Cata raid patches were a mixed bag with ToC and Dragonsoul both being terrible. If they can keep the quality set high and continuing releasing large-enough raids at a reasonable pace, it's not a point of contention for MoP.

MoP is an expansion where they did a lot of stuff right. High quality, robust, and less linear leveling content, well-received new class and race, new features like pet battles, bigger emphasis on "content for the many" in the form of scenarios, LFR, and dailies. The expansion was Blizzard saying "We heard your complaints about Cata, we need to make this expansion feel like an MMO again and with content designed for everybody". I try to imagine an expansion where the dailies didn't exist to burn people out, and in their place we had maybe an extra 2-3 dungeons. It still seems like the sort of expansion that would have a large drop off of players after a few months, simply because WoW is almost 10 years old and people get bored of it quickly. Dailies and the expansion being "alt-unfriendly" only seem like small road-blocks to the inevitable outcome of "I'm bored of playing WoW/MoP and I'll check back when they release another expansion".