WOW will not be saved at all. They have chosen to go with the ultra casual players because they think that the ultra casual players is their best market. Yet 6 years of going with this crowded has failed. So why not tack on 2 more years of this.
Really? I always thought of FFXIV as a casual players paradise. Maybe they both are.
Yes and no, to FFXIV. Most of the content can be don casually. But the raids are far from casual.
We can also add that FFXIV requires you to do the boss mechanics unlike WOW where you can stand in fire and tunnel the boss and blame the healer if you die. In FFXIV if you dont get out of shit consistently you die and you cannot blame the healer because 1 shot mechanics are not the healers fault. WOW does not want 1 shot mechanics people more people would leave the game. Just look at Cata.
Guess that is why people are leaving cause the Hellfire raids have one shots and death to fire if you stand in it....but lets go back to bashing WoW without knowing the game.
I wouldn't say he doesn't know the game, he just does LFR probably which doesn't require any skill tbh.
I wouldnt know the game. Thats a Joke coming from a Wraith Baby. I was playing when Tanks use to stance dance to avoid fear. I played when Fire and Nature Resist was needed for tanking certain bosses. I remember when Reagents were needed to cast raid wide buffs.
Today's WOW is a joke and you people love to say shit like "he just does LFR" Guess what I quit people of LFR and people that count that as raiding. No WOW will never be saved it is a Joke and will always be a joke because people like you who think you are good when in reality Vanilla and The Burning Crusades would have made you cry. Ever did Alcatraz Heroic? I did, 3 months into TBC and cleared it. It took a good 4 hours however I can say I did it. That was harder than anything they have in game now, when the majority of the population was good. Today its a Joke so don't throw your LFR comment at someone who has played WOW in its prime and yes was even more successful than today's wannabe rabble that play WOW. Razorgore is a hell of a lot harder than anything in WOW today. I remember raiding for 6 weeks 3 to 4 nights a week trying to kill him. It was great when we killed him. Today you are lucky to be stuck on the boss for 1 week raiding 2 days a week.
Edit
FFXIV Dungeons are also better than any dungeon WOW has put out since Cata. Also FFXIV Dungeons are better than anything in WOTLK. Cata at least had some good Dungeons, and everything Vanilla WOW or TBC is good stuff. You know what happened during WOD beta. They nerfed the Dungeons from where you couldn't ignore mechanics to Dungeons being useless after the first run. At least in FFXIV the Dungeons always will be worth something.
WOW will not be saved at all. They have chosen to go with the ultra casual players because they think that the ultra casual players is their best market. Yet 6 years of going with this crowded has failed. So why not tack on 2 more years of this.
Really? I always thought of FFXIV as a casual players paradise. Maybe they both are.
Yes and no, to FFXIV. Most of the content can be don casually. But the raids are far from casual.
We can also add that FFXIV requires you to do the boss mechanics unlike WOW where you can stand in fire and tunnel the boss and blame the healer if you die. In FFXIV if you dont get out of shit consistently you die and you cannot blame the healer because 1 shot mechanics are not the healers fault. WOW does not want 1 shot mechanics people more people would leave the game. Just look at Cata.
Guess that is why people are leaving cause the Hellfire raids have one shots and death to fire if you stand in it....but lets go back to bashing WoW without knowing the game.
I wouldn't say he doesn't know the game, he just does LFR probably which doesn't require any skill tbh.
I wouldnt know the game. Thats a Joke coming from a Wraith Baby. I was playing when Tanks use to stance dance to avoid fear. I played when Fire and Nature Resist was needed for tanking certain bosses. I remember when Reagents were needed to cast raid wide buffs.
Today's WOW is a joke and you people love to say shit like "he just does LFR" Guess what I quit people of LFR and people that count that as raiding. No WOW will never be saved it is a Joke and will always be a joke because people like you who think you are good when in reality Vanilla and The Burning Crusades would have made you cry. Ever did Alcatraz Heroic? I did, 3 months into TBC and cleared it. It took a good 4 hours however I can say I did it. That was harder than anything they have in game now, when the majority of the population was good. Today its a Joke so don't throw your LFR comment at someone who has played WOW in its prime and yes was even more successful than today's wannabe rabble that play WOW. Razorgore is a hell of a lot harder than anything in WOW today. I remember raiding for 6 weeks 3 to 4 nights a week trying to kill him. It was great when we killed him. Today you are lucky to be stuck on the boss for 1 week raiding 2 days a week.
Edit
FFXIV Dungeons are also better than any dungeon WOW has put out since Cata. Also FFXIV Dungeons are better than anything in WOTLK. Cata at least had some good Dungeons, and everything Vanilla WOW or TBC is good stuff. You know what happened during WOD beta. They nerfed the Dungeons from where you couldn't ignore mechanics to Dungeons being useless after the first run. At least in FFXIV the Dungeons always will be worth something.
As we said he has not done the new stuff so he does not know.
WOW will not be saved at all. They have chosen to go with the ultra casual players because they think that the ultra casual players is their best market. Yet 6 years of going with this crowded has failed. So why not tack on 2 more years of this.
Really? I always thought of FFXIV as a casual players paradise. Maybe they both are.
Yes and no, to FFXIV. Most of the content can be don casually. But the raids are far from casual.
We can also add that FFXIV requires you to do the boss mechanics unlike WOW where you can stand in fire and tunnel the boss and blame the healer if you die. In FFXIV if you dont get out of shit consistently you die and you cannot blame the healer because 1 shot mechanics are not the healers fault. WOW does not want 1 shot mechanics people more people would leave the game. Just look at Cata.
Guess that is why people are leaving cause the Hellfire raids have one shots and death to fire if you stand in it....but lets go back to bashing WoW without knowing the game.
I wouldn't say he doesn't know the game, he just does LFR probably which doesn't require any skill tbh.
I wouldnt know the game. Thats a Joke coming from a Wraith Baby. I was playing when Tanks use to stance dance to avoid fear. I played when Fire and Nature Resist was needed for tanking certain bosses. I remember when Reagents were needed to cast raid wide buffs.
Today's WOW is a joke and you people love to say shit like "he just does LFR" Guess what I quit people of LFR and people that count that as raiding. No WOW will never be saved it is a Joke and will always be a joke because people like you who think you are good when in reality Vanilla and The Burning Crusades would have made you cry. Ever did Alcatraz Heroic? I did, 3 months into TBC and cleared it. It took a good 4 hours however I can say I did it. That was harder than anything they have in game now, when the majority of the population was good. Today its a Joke so don't throw your LFR comment at someone who has played WOW in its prime and yes was even more successful than today's wannabe rabble that play WOW. Razorgore is a hell of a lot harder than anything in WOW today. I remember raiding for 6 weeks 3 to 4 nights a week trying to kill him. It was great when we killed him. Today you are lucky to be stuck on the boss for 1 week raiding 2 days a week.
Edit
FFXIV Dungeons are also better than any dungeon WOW has put out since Cata. Also FFXIV Dungeons are better than anything in WOTLK. Cata at least had some good Dungeons, and everything Vanilla WOW or TBC is good stuff. You know what happened during WOD beta. They nerfed the Dungeons from where you couldn't ignore mechanics to Dungeons being useless after the first run. At least in FFXIV the Dungeons always will be worth something.
As we said he has not done the new stuff so he does not know.
I was in the WOD beta since day one. I also played for WOD for 2 months and hated every minute of it. Why? Because its mind numbing instances. And If you want to wave the flag of well you have not done Mythic raiding. Guess what. I am not going to do mind numbing content for a few bosses that are tough. Again you loose and yes WOW BLOWS thats why you are loosening subs and will continue to loose subs. Its sad that to get any challenge one needs to do Mythic or timed runs, and is the reason why 99% people suck in WOW today.
WOW will not recover, or at the very least, it will never return to its glory days. The market is saturated with other and better games (note: by better, I mean games that people would rather play than WOW).
Mark my words, unless Legions does something way outside the box, WOW will be F2P (or at least, Freemium) in the next 2-3 years. This includes them spitting out expansions faster than normal.
Raquelis in various games Played: Everything Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6 Wants: The World Anticipating:Everquest NextCrowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
World of Warcraft DOES need saving, at least if blizzard wants the game to stay the forerunner in the MMo market and to give them a large deal of profits. The fact its subscriber numbers are at an all time low only seen back during Vanilla when the game was new, it just shows how much of a decline it is.
Given the game flops again in legion, most likely the subscription numbers would only slide down further, with a huge disappointment like WoD it could be likely we see numbers drop to 2-3 million. It has a larger team working on it then before, purposely from what we have found out in order to pump out the horrible yearly expansions to rake in more cash from the individual player. While a drop of subs can be made up for in some part by more up front cash being charged, eventually those declining subscriptions will hurt the company with the rapid release of expansions not providing as much money as having better quality and more subscribers steadily paying into the game.
If the game doesn't provide a good expansion in legion, there is a good chance we will see more nickle and diming from blizzard while providing less service in exchange. It won't kill the MMo, but it will for sure diminish the experience and make it difficult for the game to garnish anywhere near the hype it had before. People came back for WoD to give it a chance only to be burned, most people aren't willing to get burnt again. The more blizzard pushes WoW in the wrong direction, the worst off the game will be and the more difficult it will be for wow to ever be as profitable or have as high of a population then it had ever again.
I think that there are a lot of misleading assumptions here. First of all, WoW subscriptions reached a peak as high as any expansions since WotLK, in WoD. Prior to that, subs still hit 10 million during their peak (for Cata and Panda). For that matter, Panda actually surpassed the 10.2 million subs of Cata for a time.
It's not so much that people are losing all faith in WoW. People still want to play WoW, but it's no longer the ONLY game they play. Sub numbers fall off as people cycle in and out of games. That, coupled with gameplay changes that many felt were game-breaking like trivializing professions, adding in the garrisons, removing the skill tree, etc. Fact is, though, it's still one of the most compelling stories.
Also, you're eluding to a slippery slope, but it's sub numbers have never been less than double that of their next closest competitor and probably no less than 10 times that of the #3 subscription game. I'm really sorry, but that's kind of like saying that Wal-Mart is in trouble because they're getting a bad reputation for these "People of Walmart" so they are surely going to lose tons of customers.
Another problem with the whole subscriber theory is "Where the hell do these subscribers go?" The number of MMORPG gamers isn't growing THAT substantially that between each WoW expansion there are like 3 million or more new MMORPG, sub, gamers. No other game is, suddenly, seeing increases of millions of users. No, these are people returning to WoW again and again. Staying and playing through and then leaving again and probably playing other games. The fact that they can't keep people entertained long enough is definitely an issue, but it's not bad considering they have 10 million+ subscribers in each of their past 4 expansions. That's JUST about as good as it gets. The biggest problem WoW has right now is making their content compelling enough to have people stick around between expansions. THAT is a problem I'd love to have as an MMORPG developer.
I'm afraid your analogy is all wrong. If a two parent family earn £200k income and live in an expensive house with big cars, then losing half of their income, but still bringing in more than the average family, will be a disaster to them - loss of house (can't pay mortgage size), fast cars etc. It's not how they want to end up having built up something. It's the same in business. Blizzard having twice what anyone else has isn't good news for Blizzard if their subs are falling by the thousands each month as it will effect their business models, assets, employees, projects, plans etc. It's not good news.
I dont know why people offer "tips" to a game that has x5 the number of some of the 2nd best MMOs on the market. Okay, WoW lost 7-8 million subs. What game do you know has ever had 12-13 million subscribers past or present? For that fact, what game do you know even has 5-6 million subs? Yeah the game is repetitive as hell but its still the best game on the market, numbers wise.
I dont know why people offer "tips" to a game that has x5 the number of some of the 2nd best MMOs on the market. Okay, WoW lost 7-8 million subs. What game do you know has ever had 12-13 million subscribers past or present? For that fact, what game do you know even has 5-6 million subs? Yeah the game is repetitive as hell but its still the best game on the market, numbers wise.
My post above applies to you too.
So pretty much you're saying that the 7 million subs they had before WoD went live, followed by the increase to 13 million subs, followed by the current 5-6 million subs they have now, is doing more harm than good to the company. Ok.
I don't think that there will ever be an increase in subs again, other than a short-lived spike after each expansion. Long-term it will continue to tail off down to a hardcore group of a million or so.
I am not going to do mind numbing content for a few bosses that are tough. Again you loose and yes WOW BLOWS thats why you are loosening subs and will continue to loose subs. Its sad that to get any challenge one needs to do Mythic or timed runs, and is the reason why 99% people suck in WOW today.
No.... It is losing subs because it is old as *bleeep* in gaming terms. As someone pointed out... They have a solid core of a few million players that keep them afloat. Then each expansion pretty much pays for it self + some extra money to keep the office vending machines going.
That core by the way... is more paying customers than most mmo type games in the west can ever hope to get. So it is not like they are hurting.
Some people seem to think that there is a way back to a stable 10+ million subs...there is not. Nor will it ever be no matter what they do... Heck they could offer a perfect nostalgic simulation of what everyone think of the "best time" of WoW... And it would still not make them peak back to 10 for any length of time.
My personal prediction is that WoW will pan out at around 2.5 mil subs and than stay there pretty stable until Blizzard sunsets the game.
Blizzard takes a LONG time to develop things. They HAVE to be far into development of Legion. I don't think they'll be able to save the game and reverse the problems with the next expansion. They'll sell a lot of boxes but probably 1/2 to 3/4 of what WoD sold.
'Saving' has the connotation of something that is broken and needs to be fixed. I don't think that's WoWs problem. I think it's simply a matter of age. Eventually things tarnish and they begin a decline. It's a natural process, and I don't think anything will 'save' it. I imagine if they did an ARR type thing, it could, but short of that, it will go down comfortably. It will have a dedicated following for years to come.
With Deamon Hunters as a class... Son/daughter/non-binary that thing will sell like freaking hotcakes. It is one of the most requested features (after housing... and well.. that did not turn out that well...) since well.. Illidan.
I think Bill mentioned that testing for Legion will start sometime this year. Even if people hate wow, they have to respect the fact that Blizzard doesn't sell beta access and they actually take months to test unlike these 3-4 day beta events that many companies try to sell. As for the expansion being any good, that's a different story.
Blizzard is like the train company who refused to make cars. Instead of making new content for an old game they should create a new game with nextgen technology.
'Saving' has the connotation of something that is broken and needs to be fixed. I don't think that's WoWs problem. I think it's simply a matter of age. Eventually things tarnish and they begin a decline. It's a natural process, and I don't think anything will 'save' it. I imagine if they did an ARR type thing, it could, but short of that, it will go down comfortably. It will have a dedicated following for years to come.
Agreed. The game itself is what it will always be. Millions still love it and play it. As long as Blizzard continues to release expansions every 18 months or so, people will still continue to play and pay. Although, I am sure that there is some population point where the game becomes B2P (they'll sell battlechest and expansions) and drop the sub. Then they can make additional funds off mounts, pets and account services.
As many have said it depends on what you mean by "save".
"get back to 8 or 10 or 12 million subs" - unlikely. "be the xpac that will point the way to another 10 years" - probably not. "recreate some undefined warm and fuzzy feeling" - no.
Beyond that? Well WoW is still making money albeit less and it is in decline (its net revenue is published in the quarterly SEC filings, no need to guess).
Did Blizzard expect the fall when they stopped releasing content patches? A fall probably. What they may not have realised is the post WoD consequence. 14 months pre-WoD with no patches meant those who stuck around all the time they needed to "finish" content. So the post-WoD fall has been that much greater.
And if SBFord's "feeling" - and I agree - that the big fall in subs will be Q3 then we will be looking at below 4M. (And some of those will be playing with tokens). Still making money though.
I doubt it will get WoW back to its prime sub numbers. And I'll agree with other posters, in that, it doesn't need saving. WoW has transformed into a game I'm no longer excited about, but I have so much history with it, I wont give it up. So at least for me, I'll show up, reach level cap on my Lock and Priest and be done. I'll do some PvP because I still enjoy it, but after that...?
dont think WoW needs saving.. sure it's changed into a game i dont really enjoy anymore but i'll probably check out the new expac along with lots of others that dont actively play it. i just hope they quit that yearly expac nonsense especially if they're going to charge 60$ for it
That's why I like Twitch.
Whenever I hear the stories about WoW being great again I look at Twitch. See what it looks like there and how the gameplay is. Then it saves me from installing another trial or sub for 1 month.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
If I was running WOW these are the key things I would be changing.
1. Every 3 months deliver a raid with 7 bosses featuring normal/heroic modes, totalling 4 raid dungeons in a year.These raids will also have achievements offering a title, a mount from heroic achievements and one rare drop mount from last boss.
2. Allow players to have optional 10 or 20 sized raids. It was already nightmerish to depend and wait on 9 other players to show up per raid night. 19? No thx.
3. PvP seasons lasting equally as long as a current raid, 3 months.
4. Add some events or something to keep players playing off raid schedule.
5. Finally, focus as much as I can on dropping the sub cost and expansion fee to stay competitive with rest of the products with my outdated one that promices polish, quality over modern engines with far awesome graphics, combat.
This is the ONLY thing that can bring me back in 2016 over everything else that's coming.
Blizzard is like the train company who refused to make cars. Instead of making new content for an old game they should create a new game with nextgen technology.
they tried, but it wasnt good enough (TITAN)
hearthstone, heroes of the storm...nothing new here, obviously
poor, poor blizzard, i guess theyre royally effed...not
Blizzard know that catering to the tiny yet most vocal number of players will instantly kill WoW. They are safe as long as they have over a million subbers. Catering to the vocal minority will result in maybe a few hundred thousand (or even less) players subbing only. They are aware of that.
WOW will not be saved at all. They have chosen to go with the ultra casual players because they think that the ultra casual players is their best market. Yet 6 years of going with this crowded has failed. So why not tack on 2 more years of this.
Really? I always thought of FFXIV as a casual players paradise. Maybe they both are.
Yes and no, to FFXIV. Most of the content can be don casually. But the raids are far from casual.
We can also add that FFXIV requires you to do the boss mechanics unlike WOW where you can stand in fire and tunnel the boss and blame the healer if you die. In FFXIV if you dont get out of shit consistently you die and you cannot blame the healer because 1 shot mechanics are not the healers fault. WOW does not want 1 shot mechanics people more people would leave the game. Just look at Cata.
Guess that is why people are leaving cause the Hellfire raids have one shots and death to fire if you stand in it....but lets go back to bashing WoW without knowing the game.
I wouldn't say he doesn't know the game, he just does LFR probably which doesn't require any skill tbh.
Edit
FFXIV Dungeons are also better than any dungeon WOW has put out since Cata. Also FFXIV Dungeons are better than anything in WOTLK. Cata at least had some good Dungeons, and everything Vanilla WOW or TBC is good stuff. You know what happened during WOD beta. They nerfed the Dungeons from where you couldn't ignore mechanics to Dungeons being useless after the first run. At least in FFXIV the Dungeons always will be worth something.
That's a really nice opinion you have there...now me and a lot of people would disagree with and I would also like to know why are you complaining about a video game you don't play anymore? Or wait nobody talks about ffxiv because it's sooooo awesome right?
If I was running WOW these are the key things I would be changing.
1. Every 3 months deliver a raid with 7 bosses featuring normal/heroic modes, totalling 4 raid dungeons in a year.These raids will also have achievements offering a title, a mount from heroic achievements and one rare drop mount from last boss.
2. Allow players to have optional 10 or 20 sized raids. It was already nightmerish to depend and wait on 9 other players to show up per raid night. 19? No thx.
3. PvP seasons lasting equally as long as a current raid, 3 months.
4. Add some events or something to keep players playing off raid schedule.
5. Finally, focus as much as I can on dropping the sub cost and expansion fee to stay competitive with rest of the products with my outdated one that promices polish, quality over modern engines with far awesome graphics, combat.
This is the ONLY thing that can bring me back in 2016 over everything else that's coming.
You should really try to follow up on a game you are going to comment on.
1) That's about how the raids were released in WoD
5) Competive? Are you kidding try google every mmorpg out today is trying to compete with wow and failing. Wow this could be the most fail post I've ever read.
Comments
Today's WOW is a joke and you people love to say shit like "he just does LFR" Guess what I quit people of LFR and people that count that as raiding. No WOW will never be saved it is a Joke and will always be a joke because people like you who think you are good when in reality Vanilla and The Burning Crusades would have made you cry. Ever did Alcatraz Heroic? I did, 3 months into TBC and cleared it. It took a good 4 hours however I can say I did it. That was harder than anything they have in game now, when the majority of the population was good. Today its a Joke so don't throw your LFR comment at someone who has played WOW in its prime and yes was even more successful than today's wannabe rabble that play WOW. Razorgore is a hell of a lot harder than anything in WOW today. I remember raiding for 6 weeks 3 to 4 nights a week trying to kill him. It was great when we killed him. Today you are lucky to be stuck on the boss for 1 week raiding 2 days a week.
Edit
FFXIV Dungeons are also better than any dungeon WOW has put out since Cata. Also FFXIV Dungeons are better than anything in WOTLK. Cata at least had some good Dungeons, and everything Vanilla WOW or TBC is good stuff. You know what happened during WOD beta. They nerfed the Dungeons from where you couldn't ignore mechanics to Dungeons being useless after the first run. At least in FFXIV the Dungeons always will be worth something.
As we said he has not done the new stuff so he does not know.
Mark my words, unless Legions does something way outside the box, WOW will be F2P (or at least, Freemium) in the next 2-3 years. This includes them spitting out expansions faster than normal.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
That core by the way... is more paying customers than most mmo type games in the west can ever hope to get. So it is not like they are hurting.
Some people seem to think that there is a way back to a stable 10+ million subs...there is not. Nor will it ever be no matter what they do... Heck they could offer a perfect nostalgic simulation of what everyone think of the "best time" of WoW... And it would still not make them peak back to 10 for any length of time.
My personal prediction is that WoW will pan out at around 2.5 mil subs and than stay there pretty stable until Blizzard sunsets the game.
This have been a good conversation
I self identify as a monkey.
This have been a good conversation
"get back to 8 or 10 or 12 million subs" - unlikely.
"be the xpac that will point the way to another 10 years" - probably not.
"recreate some undefined warm and fuzzy feeling" - no.
Beyond that? Well WoW is still making money albeit less and it is in decline (its net revenue is published in the quarterly SEC filings, no need to guess).
Did Blizzard expect the fall when they stopped releasing content patches? A fall probably. What they may not have realised is the post WoD consequence. 14 months pre-WoD with no patches meant those who stuck around all the time they needed to "finish" content. So the post-WoD fall has been that much greater.
And if SBFord's "feeling" - and I agree - that the big fall in subs will be Q3 then we will be looking at below 4M. (And some of those will be playing with tokens). Still making money though.
Wow would surely earn money the next 5 years even if it follows the direction it have the last 2 expansions but it could do better.
Whenever I hear the stories about WoW being great again I look at Twitch. See what it looks like there and how the gameplay is. Then it saves me from installing another trial or sub for 1 month.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
If I was running WOW these are the key things I would be changing.
1. Every 3 months deliver a raid with 7 bosses featuring normal/heroic modes, totalling 4 raid dungeons in a year.These raids will also have achievements offering a title, a mount from heroic achievements and one rare drop mount from last boss.
2. Allow players to have optional 10 or 20 sized raids. It was already nightmerish to depend and wait on 9 other players to show up per raid night. 19? No thx.
3. PvP seasons lasting equally as long as a current raid, 3 months.
4. Add some events or something to keep players playing off raid schedule.
5. Finally, focus as much as I can on dropping the sub cost and expansion fee to stay competitive with rest of the products with my outdated one that promices polish, quality over modern engines with far awesome graphics, combat.
This is the ONLY thing that can bring me back in 2016 over everything else that's coming.
they tried, but it wasnt good enough (TITAN)
hearthstone, heroes of the storm...nothing new here, obviously
poor, poor blizzard, i guess theyre royally effed...not
1) That's about how the raids were released in WoD
2) Again WoW already has Flex raids
3) check
4) events? Again check.... http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18985406/patch-62-preview-bonus-events-and-adventure-guide-5-7-2015
5) Competive? Are you kidding try google every mmorpg out today is trying to compete with wow and failing. Wow this could be the most fail post I've ever read.