Don't count WoW out quite yet. The only real threat it faces at this point is Blizzard (and Ghostcrawler...^^). I'm certain that over time, they will slowly lose more and more players. But they could lose a million players a year, and still be around for more than another decade... ^^
You forgot that anyone who knows where the server are exactly hosted can just go there and unplug the servers :P
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW? As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
Don't count WoW out quite yet. The only real threat it faces at this point is Blizzard (and Ghostcrawler...^^). I'm certain that over time, they will slowly lose more and more players. But they could lose a million players a year, and still be around for more than another decade... ^^
You forgot that anyone who knows where the server are exactly hosted can just go there and unplug the servers :P
Well... I seriously suspect that their data center is rather well protected, and guarded. Given that they make a billion or more a year from just WoW, they have the resources to afford much better than some rent a cops. ^^ But seriously, the people who go on (and on...) about the "death of WoW", obviously have no grasp of the scale of the operation. WoW is very likely to be around for years and years to come.
Down from 12 million to 11.1 million. Everyone panic.
Yawn.
It could easily be explained by a number of things, but one of the things that comes to my mind first is that they made instances and raids a little bit harder, and some players quit over it. They didn't really want a game that they had to pay attention to when they played it to begin with. That should have been expected by Blizzard, if it wasn't, then they weren't thinking clearly.
What I'll say from a general play perspective is that the game feels flatter; there's just less to it, like a soda that's lost some of it's fizz. No class specific quests, straight-jacket talent trees, and a leveling system which tries to hide the fact that what they've done is turn 85 levels into 45. What happens when you level is more hidden, and the leveling doesn't mean as much - you get class defining abilites at level 10 and there's nothing to really get excited about after that. Back in BC, when I played a Warlock as my main, the Felguard was the crowning achievement of the Demonologist Talent spec - I anticipated it like Christmas morning as a kid and it felt like a reward when I got it, and it was one, too, because it was an awesome minion, well worth having and well worth being at the top of a talent tree.
Now, you get it a level 10, and there's nothing in the Warlock talent tree to look forward to that comes close to giving that excitement. Instead of having to do quests to get your minions, you are just given all of them, and even the Felguard at level 10 if you choose "Demonologist" as your spec. Oh, there's been some interesting changes - but frankly they've been changes for the sake of change, not for any other reason. The Demonologist Warlock plays quite differently now too - no more using the Felguard as a tank, really, because it has no threat abilites, it's just another form of damage. It has some cool abilites, but it takes a lot of damage and when soloing you have to monkey with it and just slow down, no 2 ways about it. Raiding, the Demonologist Warlock has no trouble, and I think this reflects the fact that the devs have become more narrow-minded than ever in their thinking in terms of building classes for raiding over anything else.
Story-wise, the game is better in Cataclysm - but the lore has become in ways more fractured than ever. Somewhere around level 9-10 in the Goblin starting area you rescue Thrall - one of the most powerful mortals in Azeroth, held by low-level mobs, that you rescue, in your baby-level state. Some of the worst quests ever, too - a terrible rendition of the "Joust" arcade game in which you tap keys to make your mount flap it's wings (you continually have to use flying mounts other than your own that you have little or no control over in the game. Really. Makes. Sense. Not.) Dailies where you have to kick baby turtles into ponds rather than just carry them over and drop them in because they are in danger where they are (I won't go into the rest of how stupid the "lore" is about these turtles). Another daily where you climb a tree and throw teddy bears onto a trampoline. These things are done daily, and so wipe out the experience of the nice solo quests done when leveling up, quests far better than the old WoW quests. It's easy to forget the good when the daily grind is so bad.
I can't do it justice in a post already longer than most people will read, but if you did, you'll get the right idea, I think.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
The players were consuming the content too fast... so at that very same time they nerfed the content. Yes, that makes sense. >.>
They don't want to admit that Cataclysm ticked a lot of people off, for various reasons. Mechanics changes, class changes, only 5 more levels, little new content, ridiculously fast quest leveling, changes in difficulty, and so on and so forth. Reason = BAD EXPANSION. The expansion brought nothing new to the table in the right way. Instead the devs spent their time unraveling what people were enjoying.
And just in case a wow rep reads this (you never know), I still have no intention of coming back. But I would like you to give me a reason to.
Comments
You forgot that anyone who knows where the server are exactly hosted can just go there and unplug the servers :P
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
Well... I seriously suspect that their data center is rather well protected, and guarded. Given that they make a billion or more a year from just WoW, they have the resources to afford much better than some rent a cops. ^^ But seriously, the people who go on (and on...) about the "death of WoW", obviously have no grasp of the scale of the operation. WoW is very likely to be around for years and years to come.
Down from 12 million to 11.1 million. Everyone panic.
Yawn.
It could easily be explained by a number of things, but one of the things that comes to my mind first is that they made instances and raids a little bit harder, and some players quit over it. They didn't really want a game that they had to pay attention to when they played it to begin with. That should have been expected by Blizzard, if it wasn't, then they weren't thinking clearly.
What I'll say from a general play perspective is that the game feels flatter; there's just less to it, like a soda that's lost some of it's fizz. No class specific quests, straight-jacket talent trees, and a leveling system which tries to hide the fact that what they've done is turn 85 levels into 45. What happens when you level is more hidden, and the leveling doesn't mean as much - you get class defining abilites at level 10 and there's nothing to really get excited about after that. Back in BC, when I played a Warlock as my main, the Felguard was the crowning achievement of the Demonologist Talent spec - I anticipated it like Christmas morning as a kid and it felt like a reward when I got it, and it was one, too, because it was an awesome minion, well worth having and well worth being at the top of a talent tree.
Now, you get it a level 10, and there's nothing in the Warlock talent tree to look forward to that comes close to giving that excitement. Instead of having to do quests to get your minions, you are just given all of them, and even the Felguard at level 10 if you choose "Demonologist" as your spec. Oh, there's been some interesting changes - but frankly they've been changes for the sake of change, not for any other reason. The Demonologist Warlock plays quite differently now too - no more using the Felguard as a tank, really, because it has no threat abilites, it's just another form of damage. It has some cool abilites, but it takes a lot of damage and when soloing you have to monkey with it and just slow down, no 2 ways about it. Raiding, the Demonologist Warlock has no trouble, and I think this reflects the fact that the devs have become more narrow-minded than ever in their thinking in terms of building classes for raiding over anything else.
Story-wise, the game is better in Cataclysm - but the lore has become in ways more fractured than ever. Somewhere around level 9-10 in the Goblin starting area you rescue Thrall - one of the most powerful mortals in Azeroth, held by low-level mobs, that you rescue, in your baby-level state. Some of the worst quests ever, too - a terrible rendition of the "Joust" arcade game in which you tap keys to make your mount flap it's wings (you continually have to use flying mounts other than your own that you have little or no control over in the game. Really. Makes. Sense. Not.) Dailies where you have to kick baby turtles into ponds rather than just carry them over and drop them in because they are in danger where they are (I won't go into the rest of how stupid the "lore" is about these turtles). Another daily where you climb a tree and throw teddy bears onto a trampoline. These things are done daily, and so wipe out the experience of the nice solo quests done when leveling up, quests far better than the old WoW quests. It's easy to forget the good when the daily grind is so bad.
I can't do it justice in a post already longer than most people will read, but if you did, you'll get the right idea, I think.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
The normal human birthrate will replace the 300K lost subs
The players were consuming the content too fast... so at that very same time they nerfed the content. Yes, that makes sense. >.>
They don't want to admit that Cataclysm ticked a lot of people off, for various reasons. Mechanics changes, class changes, only 5 more levels, little new content, ridiculously fast quest leveling, changes in difficulty, and so on and so forth. Reason = BAD EXPANSION. The expansion brought nothing new to the table in the right way. Instead the devs spent their time unraveling what people were enjoying.
And just in case a wow rep reads this (you never know), I still have no intention of coming back. But I would like you to give me a reason to.