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I predict a rapid exodus of players from WoW in early 2009
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It's funny when the first person who posted on my guild forums saying "I'm bored with WoW atm, playing WAR so can't make it to raids for the next couple of weeks"
I thought he might get a talking to from the officers, might even get kicked (we got strict rules about attendance) etc but turns out they were playing it too. The responses were more like "oh you're playing it too? We should level up together etc." and now my whole guild is leaving WoW.
I'm sure we're not the only ones who are leaving WoW, it's just not the game it used to be, wotlk was a major disappointment.......for hardcore raiders.
I fixed your final comment. Saying that one of the best selling and fastest selling expansions ever is a disappointment? What about the millions still playing? Are they playing disappointed or are they just stupid?
WotLK made WOW the game it is, a casual game for people who enjoy playing it and who do not have a lot of time to play. That is what the game is - I am sorry all of the hardcore players are so very disappointed in that fact but its the truth.
I vote for stupid.
I'm sure that Vivendi is hanging on your every word........
Go see www.Wowwiki.com for 70.000 pages of Warcraft Lore and history of NPC's, world etc...
Or read the dozens of books and comics to have a real immersive world. Vanguard HAS ZERO value compared to this lore.
It amazes me (and I don't wish to offend you) that after no longer playing Wow... for 3 years (!) you STILL roam these foums to spit out opinions of a game that no longer exist. (i.e. pure raiding game).
I doubt you will find massive (hundreds of people) pvp Siege fights with destructable Keeps, tanks and artillery in Vanguard.
So before commenting on a game: first play it in its present form and than you could answer your own question.
Fist question why would anyone playing a game they consider boring in the first place, take the time to read a comic book which is probably not of the best quality btw to get more information on the game they don't enjoy? And books, are you serious? Who cares about what lowbrow fan fiction book was written about the game, this is about the game only not the fan fiction written by people most likely paid by Blizz in the first place.
As for what they won't find in Vanguard that's true, Vanguard did not steal the ideas of WAR and do a bad job of integrating them into their game, instead of trying to go for mass appeal Vanguard is an earned challenge. If thats your sole reason to not play Vanguard, then thats also a reason to not play WOW, you can get a much better siege game from WAR, you can get a better siege game from Shadowbane for that matter, that was just a poor chioce of example to begin with.
I have played Vanguard, not much, I just don't trust SOE but I't was fun, and not even near the same game as WoW, I think the people who play it would play wow, if thats what they wanted to play, but since their not, well you figure it out ok.
Finally whats all this talk about WOW being the bastion of mmorpgs, the beacon of light, the title holder of most subs, who cares? Wallmart has alot of buyers as well, is that becuase Wallmart is top quality, of course not, it's overpriced and built near parking lots, truck stops and lower middle class apartment buildings. Most kids with a new computer or borrowing their parents will pick up WoW because it like Wallmart go hand and hand. Is this a testament to WoW being the best game out there or the top of the line game that makes all others quake in their boots? No this just shows how good at marketing they are, which is not denyable. In short if WoW were food it would be Smack Raman, but alot of people who know better would rather buy you know some Steak or something. Raman will only make you sad and angry, even Pizza Hut is a real step up.
All this pro Wow love in face of the fact that this Expansion is the worst ever for WoW, it's also probably one of the worst disasters in mmo history, it has had a real negative impact. It's loosing credibility by the day, the serious players are obviously tired, bored and critical of the game for giving away top gear for very little effort. Now you can say that casuals make up the majoraty of the game, sure, but don't think for a minute if the Hardcore player base leaves the games gonna keep up those huge sub numbers.
Also bragging about WoWs graphics has to be the silliest thing I've ever heard, come on saying they are good enough or not bad enough or comical enough to tolerate is one thing, saying WoWs graphics are top of the line generational is another matter, and the most absurd thing I've ever heard.
I'd like to intervene here by saying that not everyone agrees about the merits of this expansion. For me, this was the best expansion for WoW so far and the sole reason I returned to the game. I don't know and I don't care if others agree or disagree with me. I don't play for the pleasure of others, or because others find it popular or niche or whatever reason they give to keep a subscription rolling.
If people were concentrating more on the things they love instead of obssessing on the things they hate, we'd have a much healthier community on these forums.
To cut to the chase from the 32 pages that this thread has spawned, I would first like to say to the OP that WoW's last reported sub number was 12.5 million. That sub number was produced in the last 30 days.
No where on the net including WoW officlal press releases does this 12.5 millon exist, if you are referring to this.
http://charmingjustcharming.blogspot.com/2008/07/125-million-percent-inflation-wow.html
Is one of the searches you get in Google, has nothing to do with WoW at all. So either you just lied or dont read. Again this number is on NONE of the Blizz official sites. Even a die hard fan is gonna be wary of a full million rise in players in 2 months, even 500thousand is a stretch, more than likely if it did reach 12 millon it would take about 6 to 8 months.
February.... this game is still here??? Geez.
"TO MICHAEL!"
WoW will die off give it time.
this guy only thinks he knows whats up because he called the rapid decline in AOC. Well to be honest 90% of gamers saw that one coming. Also for those who say the game is garbage and easy get over it. Blizz said the xpac would start off like that to give new players a chance to catch up to the elitiest so when the new content comes out in feb that everyone would start off on even ground.
I predict that some other armchair industry expert will predict the END OF WOW in the near future and post their ramblings on these very forums. I also predict that sometime in the future, Bliz will reveal their new MMO and millions of fans worldwide will have simultaneous nerd-gasms, while said armchair industry experts will lament about how Bliz's next MMO will initially sell well but ultimately fail.
Anyone want lottery number predictions, too?
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
Blizzard posts the exact methodology of who and what they count in their subscriber numbers. They are very very clear about it. They are the ONLY MMO company that actually posts the specific information about what is counted as a subscriber. And they include it as part of their public financial statements and Vivendi stockholder reports, so it has to be truthful by law.
Once again they post the numbers and the methodology as part of the public filings of their stockholder reports. These are sworn legal documents, and as a result are pretty much required to be taken as truthful at face value. They have a level of required legal accuracy that far surpasses any outside third party guesstimating sites such as Sir bruce, wowcensus.com or others.
With that being said, I think the OP's predications are dead on wrong. yeah he predicted AoC's catastrophic failure. So did my 8 month old brussels Griffon. AoC wasn't hard predict on. It was rather obviously crap heading to market, with a rather poor and blatant attempt to dress it up as something other than a turd. this is the point where success or failure of any game is easy to predict.
But WoW is not a newly releasing game. It is a long term success. It does not matter if you like or hate wow. The simple fact is as a bussiness enterprise it has vastly surpassed what it set out to do. And the momentum has to some degree hit critical mass. WoW has managed to enter into our pop culture, which gives it a great deal of staying power.
Now as far as the high end hardcore PvP'ers leaving in a few months. yep it probably will happen. It always happens in every one of these games. This group has a lifespan meassured in months. They blow in and blow out with X-pacs, so there will be some inflation of subscriber numbers at xpac launch, but no smart MMO operator is betting on this crowd to be their long term meat and potatoes paying customer. Their paterns are well known, and are predicted for in the game operators business models. Plus the actual numbers of this type of player is far far lower then their extreme vocalniess on the internet would lead one to believe. It's a guess on my part, but chances are that hard core high end pvp group you are talking about, probably only numbers between 400k and maybe a million outsideof Asia. And they are an extremely disparate group. No single game other than wow has ever been able to keep them for any amount of time, and their actual gaming desires are often competing and contradictory.
Whereas the guilded PvE player is any MMO's ideal long term customer. Socialization keeps them coming back. And they do so for years. They are much more forgiving of lower end graphics and tech. You mention that WoW will decline because of missing features, such as player housing. Yet you do not realize why player housing is missing from WoW. It's not an oversite or something they could not get to. Housing is missing in WoW because housing kills many of the social aspects of the game, which in turn is detrimental to that long term playerbase pf PvE raiders and dungeon crawlers.
I think people should stop predicting that WOW will keep losing subs because it hasn't happened yet , well atleast according to Blizzard it hasn't.
Not true, Blizzard has stated that they did lose some numbers at AoC's launch, and that there was some decline in the months before WotLK's release. BUt overall it still remains astonishing at how solid their numbers have remained and continued to grow throughout the games life cycle. What loses they have seen, and recovered from, are miniscule comparred to the shear scale of their subscriber base.
Not true, Blizzard has stated that they did lose some numbers at AoC's launch, and that there was some decline in the months before WotLK's release. BUt overall it still remains astonishing at how solid their numbers have remained and continued to grow throughout the games life cycle. What loses they have seen, and recovered from, are miniscule comparred to the shear scale of their subscriber base.
Ah yes so true, forgot about that Blizzard had to make some formal announcement to everyone in regards to AOC's launch.
Longevity has nothing to do with how long a game retains their subscribers. An example of this is EverQuest. People got tired of the nerf bat being used on them every few weeks, which is exactly what Blizz has been doing lately. After 1-2 years of it, most left and SoE was faced wtih consolidating servers. This is how it will start with WoW.
Regardless of how loyal subscribers are or how long they have been playing, if a game developer continues to nerf classes in an attempt to compensate for a lack of new content - they will lose.
Blizz has doubled travel speeds, nerfed healers and tanks, made a really silly "hero" class that has been dominating the PVP arena and making them unplayable by other classes, and buffing the hybrids. Their latest attempt, patch 3.1, is nothing but a bundle of nerfs disguised as "buffs". The language used to describe the changes is vague at best. The fanbois are out in large nubmers on the message boards posting, "yay", (I kid you not), because they don't understand what the changes mean.
Blizz devs have openely stated that they are "cracking down hard" on healer regen. What the hell does that mean? It means they are removing the benefits of spirit from the game making you rely on spells and Mp5. Good luck with that Blizz.
They are also adding "dual spec" abilties for hybrids saying it compenstated for the lack of healers and tanks. So now a dps can heal and a healer or tank can dps - whichever is needed for that particular group. I suppose that makes some subscribers happy but it's actually dummying down the game. Eventually, people are going to become extremely bored with the whole thing, get tired of being nerfed every few weeks and LEAVE. Just like they did with EverQuest.
History repeats itself and there is no denying that when consumers become tired of being nerfed - the worst thing you can do in an MMO - they leave.
I agree with the prediction that 2009 will be the beginning of the end for World of Warcraft.
WoW will die. And, as some people have pointed out, Blizzard will be the one to kill it. I predict in about 7-10 years (considering the lengthy time they take on development) Blizzard will announce WoW2 and will allow subscribers to transfer their existing accounts ,characters and all, to the new game on release. I believe the new game will have eye-bleedingly realistic visuals, and enormously difficult/rewarding high-level content to make transferring established characters worthwile. And i believe there wont be a lot WoW players, lapsed or otherwise, that will be able to resist picking up where they left off, starting fresh, or continuing unbroken into the sequel. At least, thats what I hope happens. I kind of miss the good old days of RPG's like the Wizardry series where you could import your entire party from the previous game into the sequels allowing you to use the same characters from the very begining all the way to the bitter end.
We're almost halfway through the "early 2009" and all I hear about is bad news from rival MMOs and no indication that WoW has even slowed down, let alone bleeding players.
It's disheartening to see delusioned threads such as this pop up every month, only to be shot down by the reality check of the next month.
Hate less. Game more. Have fun
When WoW eventually falls, it will be from a slow, gradual bleedoff of players.
The only way I see a mass exodus of players from WoW is if you see a headline similar to this in the news any time soon:
"In a coop mission with the Chinese Government, Blizzard death squad kicks in the door of another chinese gold farming sweatshop today, 93,000 sweatshop workers were killed. ....This marks the 7th straight week of Blizzard/chinese government raids by the deathsquad throughout mainland China......"
"In related news, WoW subscription rate has plummetted by over 6 million in the last 7 weeks due to gold farmers being either put to death or sent scrambling into hiding.....more news at 11."
QFT.
You also have to wonder about the sincerity of posts made by people who have 1 and 2 posts maximum, and take them for what they sound like.
Are we really led to believe that someone had been reading and scanning forums for a long time, then felt compelled as a "first post", to talk about how Wow is failing and going to fail?
They could talk about their favorite game they are playing right now, or what they are excited about that's coming, or questions regarding games they are looking at, which is what most people who are new talk about in the first couple of postings. But here in this Wow forum, we get in-depth slamming that smacks of envy by newbies to the forums.
To start off your posting history with "I too believe Wow will fail this year" is awfully suspect.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I hope you are being funny
The reason I say that is because I play on one of the most populated servers and have not seen a single gold farmer nor received a single tell or heard a single comment about one since WotLK launched. Gold is no issue anymore due to dailies, best loot coming from very accessible dungeons and raids and faction rewards. The only reason you need a large amount of gold is for mounts or crafting but due to the amounts you need, it would red-flag you immediately (I am talk 10k+ gold here) if you received it. Sure, there are still gold farmers around but Blizzard has quelled the need for lots of gold in various ways which has decreased demand. It is nowhere near the issue it was at launch or prior to BC.
Only somewhat. But it was funny, wasn't it? I thought it was rather clever. And I DID say that WoW isn't going anywhere..
93000? That's a lot of grinding. How much XP do you get per kill and what do they drop that makes 'em so worth farming? Any quests that involves killing sweatshop farmers and where can I pick them up? Oh and where's this China raid instance located again?
Blizzard Death Squad... nice guild name btw.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
You know, my thinking is this. WoWs defenders keep saying wheres the WoW killer or that no game will ever kill wow. That being said, I don't think their needs to be. How many players in SWG left out of sheer bitterness? The only wow killer their needs to be is wow itself, and it's doing a fine job on it's own right now.
TOP-SELLING PC SOFTWARE - NOVEMBER 2008
Title / Publisher / ASP
1) WOW: Wrath of the Lich King / Activision Blizzard / $36
2) WOW: Wrath of the Lich King Collectors Ed / Activision Blizzard / $70
3) Call Of Duty: World At War / Activision Blizzard / $50
4) Spore / Electronic Arts / $48
5) Fallout 3 / Bethesda Softworks / $49
6) WOW: Battle Chest / Activision Blizzard / $34
7) The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / Electronic Arts / $19
8) Left 4 Dead / Electronic Arts / $48
9) The Sims 2 Apartment Life / Electronic Arts / $21
10) Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 / Electronic Arts / $49
11) World of Warcraft / Activision Blizzard / $18
12) The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff / Electronic Arts / $19
13) Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy / Her Interactive / $20
14) EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey / SOE / $40
15) Far Cry 2 / Ubisoft / $50
16) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade / Activision Blizzard / $29
17) BioShock / Take-Two / $14
18) Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack / Electronic Arts / $19
19) IGT Slots: Little Green Men / $20
20) Assassins Creed: Directors Cut Edition / Ubisoft / $17
TOP-SELLING PC SOFTWARE - DECEMBER 2008
Title / Publisher / ASP
1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
3. Spore / EA Maxis / $47 (Average)
4. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
5. Call Of Duty: World At War / Treyarch / $50 (Average)
6. Left 4 Dead / Valve / $48 (Average)
7. Fallout 3 / Bethesda / $49 (Average)
8. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $38 (Average)
9. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
10. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
11. Bejeweled Twist / PopCap / $19 (Average)
12. Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
13. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 / EA LA / $49 (Average)
14. Grand Theft Auto IV / Rockstar North / $49 (Average)
15. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $28 (Average)
16. The Sims 2 Pets Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
17. The Sims 2 Seasons Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
18. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy / Her Interactive / $20 (Avearge)
19. The Sims 2 FreeTime Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
20. The Sims 2 University Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
LAWLSAUCE! Thanks for the laugh, buddy!
"TO MICHAEL!"
Why don't you just leave NOW? O.o Considering that you constantly have negative things to say about WoW and pride yourself in making DF threads with "rules" on who can post, then proceed to spam post on it YOURSELF.....I really think you're probably "done" with WoW. So why not LEAVE and make room in the queue for one of the OTHER 11 million people that are logging in? Hmmm?
He's not leaving NOW because it's easier for him to predict WOW's demist than when Darkfall will come out.Even Nostradamus couldn't predict when Darkfall is coming out.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft