[Column] General: The Subscriptions Dip

SBFord

This week we talk about the ever exciting subscription numbers, new Patch 6.2 features and the next Warcraft hero to appear in Heroes of the Storm.

Read more of Reza Lackey's All Things Warcraft: The Subscriptions Dip.

killahinstinct

hah.... copied from dota 2 invorker... so obvious seriously

borghive49

I never understood why WoD had such great initial reviews? This was the worst expansion Blizzard put out for this game to date in my opinion. 

parpin

yes it is very natural for an mmo to lose some people when they are done with the content..they will go to play other games but when new content comes out particularly for an expansion..they will be back..why there is article about such obvious stuff??

and non the less blizzard doing much much better than others and their new hearthstones will do great as well.. it is like they are blessed by the god of gaming or something lol.

 

Tracho12

Originally posted by borghive49
I never understood why WoD had such great initial reviews? This was the worst expansion Blizzard put out for this game to date in my opinion. 

 

I thought the quality of the expansion was excellent, but the amount of content was.....underwhelming to say the least. I've seen more content from GW2's bi-weekly updates. Blizzard should be ashamed.

borghive49

Originally posted by Tracho12

Originally posted by borghive49
I never understood why WoD had such great initial reviews? This was the worst expansion Blizzard put out for this game to date in my opinion. 

 

I thought the quality of the expansion was excellent, but the amount of content was.....underwhelming to say the least. I've seen more content from GW2's bi-weekly updates. Blizzard should be ashamed.

 

Agreed on the lack of content!

CrazKanuk

Originally posted by borghive49

Originally posted by Tracho12

Originally posted by borghive49
I never understood why WoD had such great initial reviews? This was the worst expansion Blizzard put out for this game to date in my opinion. 

 

I thought the quality of the expansion was excellent, but the amount of content was.....underwhelming to say the least. I've seen more content from GW2's bi-weekly updates. Blizzard should be ashamed.

 

Agreed on the lack of content!

Same. I don't really think it's anything new, though, is it? After BC I found that the general cycle, for me anyway, has been Get to Max Level -> Grind through a couple raids -> Get tired of gear grind -> Unsub -> Come back 6-months later -> Finish Content -> Buy new Expack. 

 

I think that's pretty much exactly how it's gone for me since after BC. I thought that the quality of the expack was actually pretty good. I do hate the added gating of content this go around, though. Seems like the gates get more and more difficult to reach each and every time around. 

Ozmodan

Winter's over people are getting out and doing things besides playing video games.   Subs always dip this time of year.

Kaneth

My biggest reasons for leaving WoW during MoP and again during WoD was the lack of added content, and I can't imagine that I'm alone.

Up through WotLK Blizzard had numerous faction grinds for various rewards, added 5 man dungeons with the addition of new raids, and generally had things to work towards even if you weren't a hardcore raider.

Cataclysm started adding less, but I was still raiding and was working on the legendary rogue daggers (some of the quests were awesome for that).

In MoP when I was burned out on raiding, well I noticed a severe lack of additional things to do once I grinded out the reps I wanted to. Lack of additional 5 mans as a "catch-up" mechanic made getting into raiding later on more difficult as well.

I started WoD with my feet on the ground running. I wanted to raid and needed to keep up with the rest of my guild. Burned through the leveling experience, which by the way is the best leveling experience in WoW in terms of storytelling, and reached end game. Got geared and then started rolling alts so I had something else to do. 

I soon became burned out with raiding, as the concept really doesn't change, and noticed a severe lack of other things to do outside of raiding and Ashran. Ashran was super active on my server, but even that became to repetitious and I grew bored quickly. More quickly than it took me to in MoP.

WoW is over a decade old now. There hasn't been anything super meaningful added to the game for a very long time, and well the whole thing has become stale. There's just way too many other games to entertain me to keep slogging through WoW.

I imagine my experience is the same for many others, and one of the reasons why WoW keeps doing the population rollercoaster.

Azaron_Nightblade

Most of the people who made those subs spike with the expansion were players who'd already left (at least) once before, and came back for the expansion.

They were never going to keep them, since WoW had already lost its magic for them. Unless the expansion was truly mindblowing. But lets face it, how often does that happen in reality? (Beyond the first two weeks when it's still shiny and new at least)

We're also living in a time where it becomes increasingly harder to make people pay a monthly subscription.

kujo123

LOOOL kiddo kael'thas original hero in war craft 3 invoker comes dota after war craft3 expansion so shup up pls invoker is copy of kael and dota is warcraft map @first do you even know that?

kujo123

Originally posted by killahinstinct
hah.... copied from dota 2 invorker... so obvious seriously

LOOOL kiddo kael'thas original hero in war craft 3 invoker comes dota after war craft3 expansion so shup up pls invoker is copy of kael and dota is warcraft map @first do you even know that?

goofy3k

Dota was a map mod from Warcraft 3, Dota 2 heroes are all based off that, and so their looks are all originally Warcraft designs. So no, Warcraft didn't copy Dota and that is a well known fact. Welcome to gaming kid, it's clear you are new here.

aliven

Originally posted by Azaron_Nightblade

Most of the people who made those subs spike with the expansion were players who'd already left (at least) once before, and came back for the expansion.

They were never going to keep them, since WoW had already lost its magic for them. Unless the expansion was truly mindblowing. But lets face it, how often does that happen in reality? (Beyond the first two weeks when it's still shiny and new at least)

We're also living in a time where it becomes increasingly harder to make people pay a monthly subscription.

It is not harder. I quited because pandas was boring, and legendary quest was behind pay wall grind. Quited WoD because lack of content, so no. Would gladly stick with it, if they keep content rolling like they promises. 

Thebeasttt

WoW numbers dropping like it does after every expansion is apparently news on MMORPG.com.

Warlyx

because wow has stopped bleeding subs after Q1 right? , im sure the number is lower than 7M now ....tokens were implemented to stop the hemorrage , blizz has been watching the process all allong in real time and losing more than 30k players every day should hurt....

Gravarg

I still play WoW, and probably always will lol (been playing since beta).  I think the major thing is the lack of content.  Even I'm kind of bored of BRF, and haven't stepped foot in HM since BRF launched except to help friends lol.  I hope this delay in content patches will mean less of a delay between expansions.  I almost stopped my sub for the first time back in MoP after running SoO for the 1000th time XD

cronius77

i did the beta for the expansion and just the level of laziness from the dev team showed. They let serious issues like character copies fail for months and de-syncs in the world go constantly. We hardly got any responses from devs during all of this and to be honest this expansion was a train wreck in the making because most of the feedback from people just being honest was ignored and never even replied to. Then the expansion finally launched with half the issues still in game the de-syncs and the bugs and it went on for what weeks? The people at blizzard running wow now are not the same ones for sure. From the shiny new zones and lore etc it looked like a solid expansion and everyone was caught up in that shiny. But some of us that had been there already a couple of months knew it wouldnt last. This expansion isnt done bleeding im willing to bet either. People can blame it on the age of the game all they wish but it has nothing to do with age , its how slow blizzard is about putting out content and also how they treat their playerbase which is abysmal.

bcbully

Anyone know if they count sold tokens as subs?

Athisar

I feel that WoW (along with most MMOs) do too little, if anything at all, to encourage new players. Any server I've tried has more or less empty starter areas, pretty long queues for dungeons, and gold inflation means the rewards from quests are absolutely useless. The few people I've seen at lower levels mostly have mounts already, which you can only get if you're an existing player.

PAL-18

"It will be interesting to see how the WoW Token continues to influence the player base."

 

http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/34823/World-of-Warcraft-Subscriptions-Tumble-from-10M-to-71M-.html

Subscription + p2w =fail.

Herase

Originally posted by borghive49
I never understood why WoD had such great initial reviews? This was the worst expansion Blizzard put out for this game to date in my opinion. 

Well think the main thing was the levelling experience wasn't too bad, I for once enjoyed the areas and think many others did as well. The thing is you don't notice the flaws until max level as you're distracted with quests, elite hunting, story, etc. Once that's done with the flaws hit you like a truck. The long ass timers become much more obvious and the content size shrinks as you have nothing to feel in between the waits and cooldowns. As someone who can sink quite a few hours into gaming, found myself standing around half the time then logging out after an hour or two. I would have quit sooner if it wasn't for brawlers guild, one bit of content outside raids which is actually fun and not restricted by bloody timers.

 

Rusque

Originally posted by killahinstinct
hah.... copied from dota 2 invorker... so obvious seriously

Has to be a troll. If not, facepalm.gif

 

Geddon95405

bots and honorbuddy killed the pvp, game is literally DOMINATED by cheaters now

 

just too little pve content for the voracious pve players, they lost a lot of dev time making the new engine

 

garrisons are WoW farmville and they make you want to avoid alts, which was a HUGE part of extra gametime for lots of players

 

so you are left with pvp that burns you out cuz of so many cheaters, very small amount of pve content and you don't want to do alts because so many things are tied into the burnout mechanics of farmville garrisons. Huge sub dip. 

Hariken

Originally posted by Athisar
I feel that WoW (along with most MMOs) do too little, if anything at all, to encourage new players. Any server I've tried has more or less empty starter areas, pretty long queues for dungeons, and gold inflation means the rewards from quests are absolutely useless. The few people I've seen at lower levels mostly have mounts already, which you can only get if you're an existing player.

Its just not Wow. Its all the so called AAA mmo's now. Low level area's are just empty which really means no new players coming in at all. If you see a low level player its someones alt for sure. In Lotro it surprises you when you see someone at all in a low level area, This is what happens with level increases to mmo's.  Everyone is in the new level 100 zone. Even when i got my Wow Hunter to level 90 i saw very few players in the level 90 area's on the game. I felt like i was playing a single player game not an mmo.

Solar_Prophet

I quit for several reasons. 

1. The terrible loot system. It was not infrequent for me to run every single LFR raid for the week and, even with using up my weekly allotment of marks / sigils (don't remember what they're called) and not get one single upgrade. If you're going to limit how many times people can roll each week, then using a 'bonus roll' should NOT result in a pitiful amount of gold. It's pure bullshit. 

2. Customization, or the lack thereof. Garrisons were supposed to be movable, they aren't. Racial decorations are a couple of banners in front of the town hall. Whoopty-doo. And racial banners are all you get to customize. Disappointing. 

3. The grind. Legendary questline requires you to grind out NINE HUNDRED of a certain item, of which you can get seventy per week between raiding and missions if you're lucky. Just under 13 weeks. Three months of grinding for one quest. I don't mind skinner boxes, but that's beyond ridiculous. 

4. Gathering professions are a joke now. Everything can be produced in your garrison, and the amount somebody who's maxed one out can gather vs. what somebody who hasn't even trained the skill can gather is so low as to be inconsequential. 

5. Lack of content. Blizzard is taking far too long to push out content, which is why I suspect they made legendary quests so long and obnoxious; to keep us busy while they take their sweet time to launch new stuff. 

6. No flying. I understand why flying should be restricted in new areas, but it's been almost six months. Running around aggroing everything gets old quickly. We've flown everywhere since TBC, but now there's hints that flying may not come back at all for WoD or subsequent expansions. Sorry, that's bullshit. At least give us a valid in-game reason for it, instead of "You just can't fly here because we said so!"

I still like WoW's overall game play, but these and other boneheaded decisions have become bothersome enough to make the game feel almost like a mobile one; something to log in and do for an hour, then go play something else. With the horrendous loot system, sometimes it feels like you didn't accomplish anything at all, a feeling which activities in previous expansions didn't have. 

It's grind, grind, grind, and more grind. And not the fun kind either.