WoW has transitioned, along with the majority of the market, from a long term investment to a short term investment (from the player's perspective). Because of the "grind hysteria" mentality that has set in, companies are reducing timesinks and quickening the pace at which content is consumed which is resulting in players burning out quicker having reached their goals in a shorter period of time. The result is Blizzard thinking they're doing right by the majority of the playerbase (making the game even more accessible, etc) but they're shooting themselves in the foot when players hit the wall quicker, faster, harder, etc and realize the longevity isn't there to warrant the sub. It's a problem for more than just WoW, but it's finally caught up with them.
You're a fool if you don't acknowledge how well designed WoW is/was. I spent many years "hating" it for what (in my opinion) it did to the genre (via manipulating player expectationts....another topic for another time), but I can't knock them for producing an extremely well-crafted game and reaping the rewards for it. But I prefer to spend my time on an MMO that understood that for rewards to have meaning, they have to be worked for. You can't shorten "the grind" to nothing because then there is no game. You can't make everything so easy that the element of risk is absent. I think developers are starting to understand this, to some degree, with games like Pantheon, Saga of Lucimia, and others on the horizon.
It's really a shame overall, despite my issues with WoW (superficial or otherwise), I played the game off and on since launch and always enjoyed my time spent, on balance. But I've become so disillusioned with MMOs in total, I've fallen back to Project1999 EQ and have been almost exclusively playing there for a few years.
I would like to see Blizzard recover and knock it out of the park with the next expansion, because despite everything, I'd still check it out and give them the benefit of the doubt.
Tbh wildstar knocks wow out of the park on stylised graphics, world, crafting, raiding and dungeons and most importantly housing (which is amazing in wildstar -check out player creations top 10). Eso knocks out wow on crafting, skills, wVw pvp, gfx, as does gw2. I just can't see what blizzard can do except the same old trudgery to keep the addicted addicted, it's a sad state of affairs, thru need to invest in wow 2 or it's going to be a long lingering death over the next decade.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Tbh wildstar knocks wow out of the park on stylised graphics, world, crafting, raiding and dungeons and most importantly housing (which is amazing in wildstar -check out player creations top 10). Eso knocks out wow on crafting, skills, wVw pvp, gfx, as does gw2. I just can't see what blizzard can do except the same old trudgery to keep the addicted addicted, it's a sad state of affairs, thru need to invest in wow 2 or it's going to be a long lingering death over the next decade.
wow is a sad affair , but wildstar isnt? lol
agree, it will prolly die in the next decade
let see how long it takes for the contenders to reach the same level of popularity
You know Blizzard is failing when they are losing millions of subscribers and no other MMO is gaining any. That means even though every other MMO is terrible gamers choose to leave the entire genre over staying with WoW.
thats because this genre is dead and stale. The last game I played serious in a mmorpg was ESO and quit when they announced free to play with no content for months. I tried playing GW2 wildstar and even old EQ2 after dabbling and I just couldnt bring myself to chasing another boring quest Ive seen in all games 100 times over. I cant even call it burnout in this genre any longer. To me its been there done that 100 times over and over again. The only fun I find anymore in anything multiplayer is survival games like Ark and 7 Days to Die. At least you actually have creative freedom in both and do not have to follow a boring story arc that is a copy and past of the last game. WOW is dying because people are bored to death of this genre. Last time I played wow people logged into raid a couple of times a week or socialize and you wouldnt see them for 3 or 4 days again. Its been going on like that everytime I went back to wow. Games like this grow stale when they are void of not being able to come up with anything new to offer.
thats because this genre is dead and stale. The last game I played serious in a mmorpg was ESO and quit when they announced free to play with no content for months. I tried playing GW2 wildstar and even old EQ2 after dabbling and I just couldnt bring myself to chasing another boring quest Ive seen in all games 100 times over. I cant even call it burnout in this genre any longer. To me its been there done that 100 times over and over again. The only fun I find anymore in anything multiplayer is survival games like Ark and 7 Days to Die. At least you actually have creative freedom in both and do not have to follow a boring story arc that is a copy and past of the last game. WOW is dying because people are bored to death of this genre. Last time I played wow people logged into raid a couple of times a week or socialize and you wouldnt see them for 3 or 4 days again. Its been going on like that everytime I went back to wow. Games like this grow stale when they are void of not being able to come up with anything new to offer.
I'm fairly certain Blizzard is more involved and are moving the majority of their resources to Hearthstone, Heroes, and Overwatch. The move to cheaper throw away content without any need for players to invest time in continues. I may sound bitter but that may be due to me not giving a flying fuck about any of those games.
thats because this genre is dead and stale. The last game I played serious in a mmorpg was ESO and quit when they announced free to play with no content for months. I tried playing GW2 wildstar and even old EQ2 after dabbling and I just couldnt bring myself to chasing another boring quest Ive seen in all games 100 times over. I cant even call it burnout in this genre any longer. To me its been there done that 100 times over and over again. The only fun I find anymore in anything multiplayer is survival games like Ark and 7 Days to Die. At least you actually have creative freedom in both and do not have to follow a boring story arc that is a copy and past of the last game. WOW is dying because people are bored to death of this genre. Last time I played wow people logged into raid a couple of times a week or socialize and you wouldnt see them for 3 or 4 days again. Its been going on like that everytime I went back to wow. Games like this grow stale when they are void of not being able to come up with anything new to offer.
Subjective
it may be subjective but all you have to do is look up the retention rate of mmorpg games compared to 5 years ago and it speaks for itself. What has come out that's innovative in the last 5 years? Action combat? its been going on in single player and console games for years. Story Arcs with choices? That to. My point is all these games are just carbon copies of one another with none of them even bothering to try and push into something different or more innovative. You literally have to look to steam EA or kickstarter and take a risky gamble to find something different.
thats because this genre is dead and stale. The last game I played serious in a mmorpg was ESO and quit when they announced free to play with no content for months. I tried playing GW2 wildstar and even old EQ2 after dabbling and I just couldnt bring myself to chasing another boring quest Ive seen in all games 100 times over. I cant even call it burnout in this genre any longer. To me its been there done that 100 times over and over again. The only fun I find anymore in anything multiplayer is survival games like Ark and 7 Days to Die. At least you actually have creative freedom in both and do not have to follow a boring story arc that is a copy and past of the last game. WOW is dying because people are bored to death of this genre. Last time I played wow people logged into raid a couple of times a week or socialize and you wouldnt see them for 3 or 4 days again. Its been going on like that everytime I went back to wow. Games like this grow stale when they are void of not being able to come up with anything new to offer.
Subjective
Since you say its subjective - which MMOs received 5m players that dont play WoW?
I said it couple of years ago - MMO genre is losing players because MMOs are super stale, and any deviation from that (GW2) is met by uprising that "its not true MMO" (true MMO being, ofcourse, clone of vanilly EQ/WoW) by self proclaimed "MMOers"
The "obvious" "not a true mmo" game to gain players in the last year is Destiny: 20M+ sold with an average play time of over 300 hours per person. Its not on PC - so what. And there are numerous other games that have launched in the last 12 months. Factor in that games are just one form of entertainment and compete with sport, books, films, tv, tourism etc.
And whilst 5M is a big number it is drop in the ocean when spread across Asia (not just China), S. America, N. America, Europe and Australasia. Would we "notice" if 1M players in e.g. Europe had stopped playing WoW - when spread between France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain ..... No is the short answer.
I don't find this surprising in the least. The sad thing is that Activision-Blizzard has, and has had for a long time, the resources to turn this tide back, but they foolishly refuse to dedicate the resources to this game that it deserves. They have enough money to rebuild the entire game from the ground up and if they were smarter that's exactly what they'd do.
I think you are spot on. They could remake every zone with new graphics, redo every instance, update all the quests and take out the huge number of "go here kill 10 bears, collect 15 frogs" to make them a bit more interesting, heck, call it WoW2 if they like. Because of their history and because of their following, I reckon millions of people would come and give it a go if they gave it a total overhaul. One of the regular things you hear levelled against WoW for it's declining subs, almost as a way of defending the decline, is people saying it's 10 years old. Well, make it new again. Car manufactures don't let cars grow old and this game has the potential if they invest in it.
Lets make some sort of community pact thats says you cant make another pointless thread about WoW subs untill it drops lower than 1mil. That should save everyone some time.
Lets make some sort of community pact thats says you cant make another pointless thread about WoW subs untill it drops lower than 1mil. That should save everyone some time.
And may never happen. But at least it would keep people from obsessing over WoW for a few years.
Keep in mind that the "no 2" subscription MMO, FFXIV has less than 500k subscribers and is considered a success by many here.
There is no other mmo with even 1 million subs, so keep in mind that WoW is on a whole other level.
Do you have any data supporting that, as all i have heard so far is that they are a lot closer to 1 million than 500k. There are even estimates that SW:TOR has over 500k active subs, which one is actually the number 2 game, is unfortunately, not easily discernible.
So WoW has dropped another 1.5 million subscribers in the Q2 despite the 6.2 release and the sale of tokens.
Okay.
So what ?
The game is really old now. For example its graphics havent been top notch at release - nowadays they are hopelessly outdated.
And getting into the game was horribly expensive when I checked a couple years ago - spent over 100 euros just so you woul have all expansions, which are all mandatory if you want to be competitive.
There is no other mmo with even 1 million subs, so keep in mind that WoW is on a whole other level.
We don't get a lot of hard data from companies but several fiscal reports ago EA reported BF3's first year subscription revenue - and to be clear I am talking subscription revenue - which indicated it had just under c.2.5M. Now I am not suggesting that BF3 is an mmo but pointing out that there are other games out there.
And this year Destiny will - probably - generate more revenue than WoW - 12 months from launch say compared to the 12 months from WoD. Now its a Bungie game so Activision will make more money from WoW but again just pointing out that there are other games out there.
If blizz was to bring back the vanilla/BC feel to the game that many of you are wanting, that would be a death blow to the game. The peeps on here most likely only represent a very, very small fraction of the player base. Those changes might be great for the few on here, but the majority of the player base would leave in droves.
Get over the fact that the type of game isn't going to happen with wow, ever. The best thing you can hope for is the progression servers.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
thats because this genre is dead and stale. The last game I played serious in a mmorpg was ESO and quit when they announced free to play with no content for months. I tried playing GW2 wildstar and even old EQ2 after dabbling and I just couldnt bring myself to chasing another boring quest Ive seen in all games 100 times over. I cant even call it burnout in this genre any longer. To me its been there done that 100 times over and over again. The only fun I find anymore in anything multiplayer is survival games like Ark and 7 Days to Die. At least you actually have creative freedom in both and do not have to follow a boring story arc that is a copy and past of the last game. WOW is dying because people are bored to death of this genre. Last time I played wow people logged into raid a couple of times a week or socialize and you wouldnt see them for 3 or 4 days again. Its been going on like that everytime I went back to wow. Games like this grow stale when they are void of not being able to come up with anything new to offer.
Subjective
Since you say its subjective - which MMOs received 5m players that dont play WoW?
I said it couple of years ago - MMO genre is losing players because MMOs are super stale, and any deviation from that (GW2) is met by uprising that "its not true MMO" (true MMO being, ofcourse, clone of vanilly EQ/WoW) by self proclaimed "MMOers"
the market is still growing, players are just spread over more games now
how many new mmos have they opened ? how many shut down?
in the old days, you had maybe 20 to chose from
now there are hundreds, some of them bigger, than the old school games
just because your favorite band isnt in the top 10 list anymore, doesnt mean that the music business is dead
the market is still growing, players are just spread over more games now
how many new mmos have they opened ? how many shut down?
in the old days, you had maybe 20 to chose from
now there are hundreds, some of them bigger, than the old school games
just because your favorite band isnt in the top 10 list anymore, doesnt mean that the music business is dead
The fact remains; there aren't any GOOD mmo's being launched.
Most are F2P ingame cash shop milking machines, WoW is turning into one as they are bleeding subs. Many MMO players demand a fast gratification model.
How many MMO's are out there that are 'world simulators' where you have to explore without being told exactly where to go, where it is dangerous 'out there' and that needs actual skill to survive. Where people are playing that game for the adventure, not to feed their " I need to get to max level fast so I can enjoy endgame raiding" addiction. Where they reach end level and burn out+leave.
I happen to be in a non level, non raid sandbox MMO that was growing for over 12 years -not WoW- but due to player age and player retention that sub base has been going down steadily. Also there is not much need for keeping alt accounts subbed so that contributes too. This is normal in the lifecycle of a MMO.
As they need new players to replace the old ones it became apparent that the newer players can hardly cope with a exploration game and demand insta-gratification before their trial expires otherwise they will leave again. So I see some content being 'simplified' to accomodate those players, to keep those aboard.
Imo, great that so many moneygrab MMO's die out there, only the real good games should survive, and if the self entitled insta gratification community leaves because of lack of choice, the better. MMO's were rare a lot of fun in the days before the ' WoW boom', if those days come back, yes please.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Comments
You're a fool if you don't acknowledge how well designed WoW is/was. I spent many years "hating" it for what (in my opinion) it did to the genre (via manipulating player expectationts....another topic for another time), but I can't knock them for producing an extremely well-crafted game and reaping the rewards for it. But I prefer to spend my time on an MMO that understood that for rewards to have meaning, they have to be worked for. You can't shorten "the grind" to nothing because then there is no game. You can't make everything so easy that the element of risk is absent. I think developers are starting to understand this, to some degree, with games like Pantheon, Saga of Lucimia, and others on the horizon.
It's really a shame overall, despite my issues with WoW (superficial or otherwise), I played the game off and on since launch and always enjoyed my time spent, on balance. But I've become so disillusioned with MMOs in total, I've fallen back to Project1999 EQ and have been almost exclusively playing there for a few years.
I would like to see Blizzard recover and knock it out of the park with the next expansion, because despite everything, I'd still check it out and give them the benefit of the doubt.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
wow is a sad affair , but wildstar isnt? lol
agree, it will prolly die in the next decade
let see how long it takes for the contenders to reach the same level of popularity
i doubt any of them can do that..ever
any other company who made a mmo tomorrow
which could have 5 million plus players, paying £10 a month for years would snap your hand off
they would probably release content weekly just to keep them
all expansions would be free as well
and yet blizzard treats people like mugs
with paid expansions and very little added content which takes months to arrive
if you think just exactly what your £10 gave you each month you would be hard pressed to think you had your monies worth
its almost like they are laughing at the players and taking them for fools
I said it couple of years ago - MMO genre is losing players because MMOs are super stale, and any deviation from that (GW2) is met by uprising that "its not true MMO" (true MMO being, ofcourse, clone of vanilly EQ/WoW) by self proclaimed "MMOers"
And whilst 5M is a big number it is drop in the ocean when spread across Asia (not just China), S. America, N. America, Europe and Australasia. Would we "notice" if 1M players in e.g. Europe had stopped playing WoW - when spread between France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain ..... No is the short answer.
Keep in mind that the "no 2" subscription MMO, FFXIV has less than 500k subscribers and is considered a success by many here.
There is no other mmo with even 1 million subs, so keep in mind that WoW is on a whole other level.
So what ?
The game is really old now. For example its graphics havent been top notch at release - nowadays they are hopelessly outdated.
And getting into the game was horribly expensive when I checked a couple years ago - spent over 100 euros just so you woul have all expansions, which are all mandatory if you want to be competitive.
Shrinking numbers are thus no surprise.
And this year Destiny will - probably - generate more revenue than WoW - 12 months from launch say compared to the 12 months from WoD. Now its a Bungie game so Activision will make more money from WoW but again just pointing out that there are other games out there.
Get over the fact that the type of game isn't going to happen with wow, ever. The best thing you can hope for is the progression servers.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
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Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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the market is still growing, players are just spread over more games now
how many new mmos have they opened ? how many shut down?
in the old days, you had maybe 20 to chose from
now there are hundreds, some of them bigger, than the old school games
just because your favorite band isnt in the top 10 list anymore, doesnt mean that the music business is dead
umm ...that would be burning crusade, i guess
yea..
Most are F2P ingame cash shop milking machines, WoW is turning into one as they are bleeding subs.
Many MMO players demand a fast gratification model.
How many MMO's are out there that are 'world simulators' where you have to explore without being told exactly where to go, where it is dangerous 'out there' and that needs actual skill to survive. Where people are playing that game for the adventure, not to feed their " I need to get to max level fast so I can enjoy endgame raiding" addiction. Where they reach end level and burn out+leave.
I happen to be in a non level, non raid sandbox MMO that was growing for over 12 years -not WoW- but due to player age and player retention that sub base has been going down steadily. Also there is not much need for keeping alt accounts subbed so that contributes too. This is normal in the lifecycle of a MMO.
As they need new players to replace the old ones it became apparent that the newer players can hardly cope with a exploration game and demand insta-gratification before their trial expires otherwise they will leave again. So I see some content being 'simplified' to accomodate those players, to keep those aboard.
Imo, great that so many moneygrab MMO's die out there, only the real good games should survive, and if the self entitled insta gratification community leaves because of lack of choice, the better.
MMO's were rare a lot of fun in the days before the ' WoW boom', if those days come back, yes please.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"