[DONE] Blizzard Not Expecting Major World Of Warcraft Growth

[Bean007]

And yet they are still the King and had more subs then any other mmo. You can't really expect it to last. It's a old engine for one. Problem with other MMO's they had no great strengths, customers proved that as you saw servers being taken down and transfers due to lack of pop.

 

[alidan]

Wow, $49.99 for expansion packs?!?!

Everquest 2 is the same. Which is why I don't buy them. 20 euros or no go.

you buy the newest expantion, you get all the older ones.
wow, you but the newest and you get access to only the newest and still need the base game and all its expantions.

 

[Heironious]

>"We really don't know if it will grow again,"

it won't. the popularity peaked. the subscription base will keep declining until there's a core group left, and then eventually they'll move on too. you should make a new game.

They have been working on a new MMO for a few years now. Project Titan.

>"We really don't know if it will grow again,"

it won't. the popularity peaked. the subscription base will keep declining until there's a core group left, and then eventually they'll move on too. you should make a new game.

>"We really don't know if it will grow again,"

it won't. the popularity peaked. the subscription base will keep declining until there's a core group left, and then eventually they'll move on too. you should make a new game.

>"We really don't know if it will grow again,"

it won't. the popularity peaked. the subscription base will keep declining until there's a core group left, and then eventually they'll move on too. you should make a new game.

>"We really don't know if it will grow again,"

it won't. the popularity peaked. the subscription base will keep declining until there's a core group left, and then eventually they'll move on too. you should make a new game.

>"We really don't know if it will grow again,"

it won't. the popularity peaked. the subscription base will keep declining until there's a core group left, and then eventually they'll move on too. you should make a new game.

 

[mamasan2000]

@daglesj
Shame that you think what I said just sounded like "You have to kill 10 squat beasts". I can only assume you never played it to the end game raiding which is where the rest of the experience is at. This also goes for all other MMO's cause it's getting to max lvl and doing raids unless you're a pure pvp'er and don't care for raiding in which case you can either be a low lvl twink or a high lvl pvp'er. Problem with twinks is your very limited on your Battlegrounds and you can't do arenas.

I can say that I lost interest during Warth and that's where I stopped at. I just didn't want to do it all over again which if you made a DK you did with the exception of the start out area which was very cool. However this is how I felt. Can I say it's boring to still play the game now? No, as I haven't touched it since Wrath. I did however try out the hacked servers but I would rather pay for quality service then free and lots of bugs. I've watched other streamers raiding in wow and I do enjoy it and I have wanted to go back before but at the stage I left my toons it would take a while for me to get to max lvl and then wait for the new exp. pack as most guilds except new ones have almost all stopped raiding as it's almost pointless with the new exp. pack coming out. Plus there's no way I'm paying $50 for a exp. pack. Now if somebody wanted to pay my monthly fee and tell me that I need to grp with them and lvl together I would gladly and I would love it.

Sounds like you jsut confirmed that leveling is a boring grind and raiding is where its at. I tend to agree with that as well. I can't stand the leveling in WoW. It IS a funnel, you stick to your one area and then move on to next when you are appropriate level. No choices at all. Which is why most people level by doing dungeons via Dungeon Finder.
I got WoW when it came out. I was so close to dropping it multiple times because leveling was so boring. A friend kept me going. Then I moved to Everquest 2.


But to answer the question about Morrowind or what it was, with exploration etc.

Everquest 2 has some exploration. You have your clickies out in the world, books, shinies (collections which give you loot once you found all in a series and theres lots of series) etc. You have puzzles. "How do I spawn this boss?"
"Which lever to pull and what order?" etc. You can feel theres lore out in the world. Both good stories in the quests, interesting architecture and graphical style.

To date, EQ2 quest-texts/speech are the only ones I've read/listened to. Theres quite a lot of voice-over. In any other game I just click next next next. Dont care. Kill bears, yeah yeah, sure.

 

[mamasan2000]

Wow, $49.99 for expansion packs?!?!

Everquest 2 is the same. Which is why I don't buy them. 20 euros or no go.

you buy the newest expantion, you get all the older ones.
wow, you but the newest and you get access to only the newest and still need the base game and all its expantions.

EQ2: To a point that is true. But if you want any features from the 2nd to last expansion, you will have to pay for it.
Like Beastlord-class, reforging, dungeonmaker and so on.

 

[Bean007]

"Sounds like you jsut confirmed that leveling is a boring grind and raiding is where its at. I tend to agree with that as well. I can't stand the leveling in WoW. It IS a funnel, you stick to your one area and then move on to next when you are appropriate level. No choices at all. Which is why most people level by doing dungeons via Dungeon Finder.
I got WoW when it came out. I was so close to dropping it multiple times because leveling was so boring. A friend kept me going. Then I moved to Everquest 2.

But to answer the question about Morrowind or what it was, with exploration etc.

Everquest 2 has some exploration. You have your clickies out in the world, books, shinies (collections which give you loot once you found all in a series and theres lots of series) etc. You have puzzles. "How do I spawn this boss?"
"Which lever to pull and what order?" etc. You can feel theres lore out in the world. Both good stories in the quests, interesting architecture and graphical style.

To date, EQ2 quest-texts/speech are the only ones I've read/listened to. Theres quite a lot of voice-over. In any other game I just click next next next. Dont care. Kill bears, yeah yeah, sure."




You are incorrect about that you have to stick to one area. Usually you'll have 2 areas that you can go 2 as your quests in the current area start to come to a end. There are books all over in wow if your looking for lore. Some in dungeons while others hidden away. There's even a Achievement for finding and reading the books.

Heck there's even the paperback's you can get to read.

As usual you don't have the correct info and I guess never even bothered to look for it. You assumed what you saw was it, didn't do much exploring and just did the quests. I would be willing to bet if you had gone to one of the RP servers and talked to some experienced player they would have shown you this, but you didn't. I think when you started playing you already had a negative mark against WoW and if so then why did you even bother. I'm even wondering if you even really played it. Perhaps you watched some youtube video of some guy that hated it and so you decided to watch it.

Lvl'ing is the same for the most of MMO's as they give you the choice of at least 2 different areas to lvl at. The only game would be something like EvE Online or Star Wars Galaxies. However they really don't have quests and it's just either killing or mining. SWG had or rather has (Unofficial Servers since the Officials are gone) missions you can take but it's for credits. You can go to any planet you want but there are certain areas that have mobs that at your current equipment setup you can kill. Can anything about EvE as I had only played it during closed beta.

I don't think you even left the starting area.

 

[yoalec]

Any true WoW player will be excited for WoD. They are fixing a lot of the things that people complained about as well as adding new things for the ones that have stuck around. I'm 100% sure they will see another spike in sub numbers. Quite a big spike in fact.

 

[Bean007]

i actually enjoyed leveling more then raiding. Raids progression was horrible even with all guildies, what should take 1 - 1 1/2 hours could turn into 3 1/2 runs just so you could watch the same items drop time after time. I know blizzard took measure to alleviate some of this but still I prefer playing games in half hour bursts since PC gaming time is a small and precious luxury to home owners/ working adults / married people/ people with kids and or pets.

Yea but most of that long times can be marked up to a guild trying to learn the bosses so mistakes are made and you have to start back over again on the fight with buffing and such, bathroom breaks, and just waiting on people. Only a guild that has a Raid Dungeon on Farm status will be able to knock it down in over a hour and even then you still have bathroom breaks and stuff like that. And there's still the chance that somebody make one mistake or there internet goes out and wipes the raid.

 

[Bean007]

actually most of the time was spent

watching everyone duel everyone else (including other raid groups) before we can enter the dungeon

half the raid needing to get something from their "bank" account

spamming portal invites for that exact second someone is actually ready to receive the inv otherwise they will ignore it and then bitch why its taking so long to get an inv

the afk chain reaction of one raider going afk creating ten other raiders to also go afk

and my personal favorite, there must be one kid in every raid who posts "brb dinner" half way into the raid (even when he tells everyone he is 18+)

raiding is fun but it gets old so fast and bosses got repetitive for me. Like I said, I'm sure blizzard alleviated some of that and I do think WoW is great but I don't see myself going back.

But that has nothing to do with the game but with the people.

Be glad you never played EQ. When you died you have to get your body back where ever it was. You either rez'ed in a new body with NOTHING at the nearest town or your save point, I don't remember which it was. Then you have to find your dead body and grab all your gear off of it before the timer runs out which I don't remember the decay timer or maybe if there was one but I'm sure there was. So now think of Raids in EQ and people die. Time to do a body run. I don't know if they've changed this but back when I last played which was Planes of Power you had to do Body Runs if you died. And there was a Death Penalty but it was worse then WoW's if you didn't go back to your body. Just remember in WoW your gear was still on you no matter if you went back to your body or not. EQ you have to take the items off the body.

Lineage II you lost xp and could even lose a lvl depending on how close you were to lvl'ing up or if you had just lvl'ed. Also you have the risk of dropping any item either equipped or not on the ground. The dropping of a item was a chance and not a always. Not related to what you were talking about but just letting you know other games that I've played and what happens. Not sure if this still happens now either.

EQ was more of the DnD from back then and try to make it as close to RP as possible I think while others stayed away as more and more people starting playing but wanted to stay away from RP. Heck when I started playing WoW some guys I knew wanted me to come play on there server. I did even though I was already playing on a PVP server. It was a RP and I made a Druid as I never played one, named him HugMyTrees. The guys I knew gave me some gear and I started lvl'ing. Within a few days my Druid on the RP server was put on hold due to name violation, it wasn't RP enough is what they said in a short and simple. And in order for me to continue to play I had to pick a new name. So I picked something random and then mailed everything I had to the guys that invited me and said I'm going back to my pvp server as I can't play with the name I want. Also they were ally and I was HORDE all the way.

 

[mamasan2000]

"Sounds like you jsut confirmed that leveling is a boring grind and raiding is where its at. I tend to agree with that as well. I can't stand the leveling in WoW. It IS a funnel, you stick to your one area and then move on to next when you are appropriate level. No choices at all. Which is why most people level by doing dungeons via Dungeon Finder.
I got WoW when it came out. I was so close to dropping it multiple times because leveling was so boring. A friend kept me going. Then I moved to Everquest 2.

But to answer the question about Morrowind or what it was, with exploration etc.

Everquest 2 has some exploration. You have your clickies out in the world, books, shinies (collections which give you loot once you found all in a series and theres lots of series) etc. You have puzzles. "How do I spawn this boss?"
"Which lever to pull and what order?" etc. You can feel theres lore out in the world. Both good stories in the quests, interesting architecture and graphical style.

To date, EQ2 quest-texts/speech are the only ones I've read/listened to. Theres quite a lot of voice-over. In any other game I just click next next next. Dont care. Kill bears, yeah yeah, sure."




You are incorrect about that you have to stick to one area. Usually you'll have 2 areas that you can go 2 as your quests in the current area start to come to a end. There are books all over in wow if your looking for lore. Some in dungeons while others hidden away. There's even a Achievement for finding and reading the books.

Heck there's even the paperback's you can get to read.

As usual you don't have the correct info and I guess never even bothered to look for it. You assumed what you saw was it, didn't do much exploring and just did the quests. I would be willing to bet if you had gone to one of the RP servers and talked to some experienced player they would have shown you this, but you didn't. I think when you started playing you already had a negative mark against WoW and if so then why did you even bother. I'm even wondering if you even really played it. Perhaps you watched some youtube video of some guy that hated it and so you decided to watch it.

Lvl'ing is the same for the most of MMO's as they give you the choice of at least 2 different areas to lvl at. The only game would be something like EvE Online or Star Wars Galaxies. However they really don't have quests and it's just either killing or mining. SWG had or rather has (Unofficial Servers since the Officials are gone) missions you can take but it's for credits. You can go to any planet you want but there are certain areas that have mobs that at your current equipment setup you can kill. Can anything about EvE as I had only played it during closed beta.

I don't think you even left the starting area.

Congrats on getting it all wrong.
I have 2 lvl90s and a few 80+. I do have a subscription running.

2 areas but traveling to the other one takes a a long time, which really isn't feasible AND since I've played both ally and horde, I've seen all those places a thousand times. Done the same quests over and over.
The game is too balanced in terms of xp/quests per area. Theres really no point in lvling up again for the sake of story or lore. You do the same quests cause there are no alternatives. This is the primary reason I can't get myself to leveling a new char, just can't stand it. It feels liek a job and a boring job at that.
In some MMOs you can do completely different quests and questlines the 2nd time around, maybe even the third. And in the case of EQ2, a fourth time for the starting levels (since new islands introduced in expansions mean new starting areas and new quests).

And now that you mention Eve. I'm dualboxing 2 characters. Can be fun. I like combat so I've been to null, lived there numerous times, lived in a Wormhole, did exploration for months, done missions a long time.
You do what you want to. When you want to. And hopefully have the skills (that you train in realtime) to pull it off.
I betatested Eve but it took me 6 years before I even touched it after that. It was called, by some, a mining simulator for a reason.

I've tried most MMOs released in the last 15 years perhaps but theres only 6 I've liked. Wow, EQ2, Vanguard, Rift, Tera and Eve. You could say I'm not exactly a casual gamer.

Yes, I've seen the lore books but theres very little of that and to boot it's, in my opinion, on the level of comic books. Childish and uninteresting, full of cliches. "I'm the all powerful! Fear me!" Something along those lines.
Theres no depth, no content, no meaning. Pandaria is a bit different but still lacking. Cliches all over again.

 

[sykozis]

Any true WoW player will be excited for WoD. They are fixing a lot of the things that people complained about as well as adding new things for the ones that have stuck around. I'm 100% sure they will see another spike in sub numbers. Quite a big spike in fact.

So, they're preventing fail tanks and healers from trying to kick DPS from dungeons/raids?
They're preventing fail tanks and healers from queueing for random dungeons/raids?
They're going to stop trying to cater to the "hardcore" crowd without catering to the little kiddies that want to faceroll every fight?
They're going to fix the stat system so you don't have to reforge or enchant every piece of gear because they were too lazy to implement a system where gear has the proper stats from the start?
They're going to remove all the useless talents and make the talents that are worth using, usable in all situations?

If they aren't fixing those 5 issues, they're really not fixing what most people complain about..... Those are the biggest complaints about WoW.

 

[ForestDingo]

My biggest complaint is that it's now completely a 'by the books' process in the creativity/gameplay department. The only reason they implemented Transmog is because they don't want people to be beaten over the head with the fact that everyone is in pretty much the same gear. It's lazy and insipid design.

The other complaint is is that it's nothing more than a glorified sandbox for the casuals where gear is handed to people with little effort.

 

[DrKlahn]

WoW greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. It's easy to pick up and play, class selection is based on preference since any class can basically DPS/heal/tank as well as another, its easy to get into groups/raids, etc., etc.,

WoW is what it is...

Well I don't think you can create a Rogue, Warrior or Mage healer. That any multi-role class can do things as well as a single/limited role class is a failure in design. Mainly they are to lazy to try to make multi-role classes bring things that are unique. They want to pander to the people who think their cat-druid should DPS as well as a Rogue pay a few gold,change gear and have their owl-bear DPS as well as a Mage or Warlock. All while being able to change form and heal (albeit not all that well as if they spec'd for it). In D&D when you decided to have a multi-classed character you knew it was going to be a compromise. And rightly so. Vanilla WoW did a decent job keeping variety and strength/weaknesses in the classes. It was whole lot more fun that way.

I agree with a lot of posters on progression too. You should have to complete Dungeons to get to the next. I remember in vanilla getting the UBRS key completed. You simply could not skip most things and I think that was a better design philosophy. It certainly felt like you accomplished more. And the cycle of the next expansions greens being close to on par to the previous expansions purples always seemed flawed. Shouldn't the people that put time into getting that gear be a bit entitled to having an easier time getting through early content of the expansion? I doubt they would care much that the early expansion levels go by quicker in comparison since their focus is mainly on endgame content anyway. It would certainly make the time invested feel a lot more worth it.

There are still a lot of fun aspects to the game. I've toyed with coming back, but I think a lot of what made me grow tired of the game is still there.

 

[DrKlahn]

I agree with your points, i think there should be comprise with with hybrid classes in how well they handle roles compared to specific role classes. I think there should be a dungeon progression. Although I do understand the new greens being more powerful then previous expansion epics. You need the new expansion to be somewhat challenging otherwise toons with the previous top tier epics would run through new expansions in a breeze and not upgrade a single peace until they almost max out to the new level cap.

I actually think a fair number of the top tier people would welcome that from my time playing. Leveling just seems to be a nuisance to a lot of them. I knew people that flat out did not quest unless absolutely necessary when the expansions came out. They did 5 mans until they hit the cap and went straight into Raiding. I was in a guild most of the time I played and actually felt a lot of pressure to get to the cap ASAP to assist with endgame content. Which is too bad. I didn't mind leveling and going through the various areas. But like you said WoW is how it is.

 

[ForestDingo]

Leveling was one of the funnest things for me in Vanilla. Plenty of people were out and about, and being on a PvP server, alot of shenanigans went on. I loved it.

 

[daglesj]

Reading through this has helped me make up my mind. I'm cancelling my subscription and walking away.

 

[ForestDingo]

Reading through this has helped me make up my mind. I'm cancelling my subscription and walking away.

You're just cancelling now? Man, you missed the boat on this one. WoW's been sucking for a long time.

 

[daglesj]

Reading through this has helped me make up my mind. I'm cancelling my subscription and walking away.

You're just cancelling now? Man, you missed the boat on this one. WoW's been sucking for a long time.

I've been playing all of a month or so.

It's just all about finding an engrossing time filler. This one has little long term appeal for me.

 

[littleleo]

I just started playing WoW again after 5 years and the game i still just as addictive as it were back then.

WoW outshines every other MMORPG out there. I've played them all, Rift, Tera, GW2, GW, Wildstar, Elder Scrolls Online etc. all of them were no where near WoW in terms of content and quality.

I'm not trying to sell WoW here, but I think it's better to pay a monthly subscription for a great game that never gets dry, due to new content that gets released pretty frequently. Also, many different aspects of PVP and PVE to keep you entertained in a long time. As mentioned before, I would rather pay a monthly subscription for a great game, instead of buying new games all the time, because you finish them too fast or you've done it all (looking at you GW2). Actually, since I started playing WoW, I've saved money, because I haven't randoml bought new games all the time.

Honestly, I think WoW is just as good as when it launched. There have been made changes and some of them work better than others. But change needs to happen or else WoW would hit the F2P model as the other contenders, which isn't quite as succesful as one might think, due to low quality, lack of content and pay to win models. (there are of course exceptions in some F2P games mostly MOBAs though like LoL, Dota 2, SMITE etc.) WoW is still unbalanced, some classes rule PVE and some classes rule PVP. Some classes rule one a specific class and gets ruled by another. I don't think Blizzard will ever solve that issue, but have any MMORPG ever solved that? I haven't seen it yet. But again, if one class wouldn't rule the other and every class were equally good at almost everything - Then what seperates them, what is the meaning of classes, if they don't have certain strong advantages, as well as disadvantages?

My point is; it's still a great game, I believe the price is high but it is justified through the amount of content and the quality it has, which I haven't found in any other game yet, counting both single-player titles as well as multi-player titles.

I played all the Warcraft games and when World of warcraft came out I was like I'll never pay monthly for it. My oldest son begged me to try it and payed for the 1st 3 months to try it. I played it with my wife watching them we started sharing an account. Eventually she wanted her own account and we'd play together for hours exploring and dying a lot. We still play not always together. Her parents joined us and my youngest son too. So we had 3 generations playing together. Sometimes we all do dungeons and Raids together or just help each other with quest and stuff. I have hated many of the changes like when that short bald dwarf nuked the Pally and what normally happens is I just don't play the toon they nerfed until it's fixed or just if some one needs its abilities for something. Still not playing the pally much because how screwed up it is. I didn't like that MoP held a lot of content back until you turned 90 to me that was a mistake. I've played the WoD beta and it is different I'll wait until I see the finished product before I come to a opinion on it. The one plus there are lots of Orcs to kill, I hate Orcs. When I come across people playing Horde I ignore them but they always want to be jerks, so if they want to dance no problem. But if they ever take WoW to F2P format I'll defiantly stop playing all together. F2P is basically lets see who wants to spend the most money to buy new gear and items. It doesn't mater if you earned something just if you can afford to buy it. Case in point MW I've played the series for years but the MMO F2P version is no fun when you run in to a group where they each plopped down $57 for clan mechs, you will just get blown to pieces.

 

[markusmcnugen]

Then you'll never know the kind of content and support a P2P can offer vs a F2P.

Skyrim has more content and support from the community alone than WoW has in years. Mods galore when it comes to Skyrim. WoW has been declining for a while now and a large portion of the mods aren't compatible with new patches. Mod devs just got tired...

LoL, Skyrim is a Single Player RPG that has only 1 person playing and that's you. You have no clue on what it's like to do a Raid Dungeon. Skyrim doesn't have near as much content as WoW. Perhaps maybe not in story but WoW isn't a plain RPG, it's a MMORPG. Large portion of mods aren't compatible cause they haven't updated them. WoW has a very very large selection of mods all the way from the start to now. Mod devs only got tired if they stopped playing the game. But if Blizzard came out with a new MMO they would be back on that waggon.

I started playing when it first came, on my 56K connection, and quit playing after Cataclysm. Mists of Pandaria just slaughtered the skill trees and simplified things too much and that's when I knew I was never going back.

Also, WoW just feels tired now. Id much rather have a true Warcraft 4 RTS than a bunch of convoluted content no one will ever see after the next expansion is released. Once Wrath came out, all the original Azeroth locations were completely void of players.

So you're comparing a RTS vs a MMO? Yea that works out well. Of course WoW feels old now, hell it's been out for a good amount of time and it's time for something new but there still better then everybody else. As far as making it easier it was to gain new people and get them to the current areas where everybody else was. Sure you had your rerollers but they made it simple so people wouldn't feel like they were left out because nobody was around. For old school player of WoW it kinda sucked cause it made it too easy but Blizzard wasn't worried about the old time player but rather getting new blood.

Actually in Cata. everybody was brought back to Azeroth as they had kinda left Azeroth in the dust and they told people to move on and forget about it. However that was a mistake for new people cause you couldn't find other people out there and that's why in Cata they brought it back to Azeroth. If you were the type of person that needed to be in a group just to lvl it would suck but if you were a lone wolf then it wasn't a big deal. For me I didn't want to be bothered with another person and trying to stay at the same lvl so we could grp together.

To your previous response, yes, I did do raiding. Plenty of it. It still got boring playing the same raids over and over just to try and get a single piece of armor that 10 other people were rolling on everytime. My point about a Warcraft RTS is specifically about the story. WoWs storyline went to crap, and its very confusing. You would only ever know anything story related if you got to raids. Otherwise its just fluff for the lore. A more linear gametype like an RTS simplifies the story enough for people to understand and connect to it.

You see how popular Stracraft is still. They didnt have to MMO that game and it's going strong. Not to mention the story is very coherent so far and with good writing. Maybe I'm just clamoring for the old days when I really enjoyed the Warcraft RTSs. Starcraft and Warcraft pulled me into liking blizzard games, and after 7 years of WoW I just couldnt stand it anymore.

Blizzard needs to bring the gameplay back to it's roots. Which it is trying to do, although in a rather vein attempt. Look at the new expansion. They are trying to make it RTS like, so why not just drop the crappy expansions and give gamers what they want. An authentic Warcraft RTS which is how the majority of us blizzard fans got started. RTS that is... not specifically Warcraft RTSs.

 

[Christiaan Lourens]

I have never played WoW before September 2014.

I had a friend buy it for me in 2004, buy me game time I swear I might still have it but some hacker code generator probably used it by now and chances of me finding it in my garage are slim to none.

Point is I started recently due to some friends and boredom and I have to say it's quite fun, I am a mmorpg vet and only chose not to wow for fear of losing my social life. Which I probably would have, I purchased WoD last night and hope to enjoy it for a while. But I don't game everyday I am casual so I think that's what sets me apart from the rest.

I miss the old days of complication, Diablo 2 for example had many many skills and you could really build a character Diablo 3 didn't have that so I only played for like 2 months.

What WoW needs is customisation of the characters, ESO and GW2 both have amazing customisation and I have to say I really really enjoy looking at a character I spent so much effort in creating.

They need a customisation update.

Even if it's minor like just changing the eye colour, mouth shape, facial expression ect.

But the limited choices we have now are really dumb, I may like the one face's everything more than the rest but the mouth shape will be all wrong. Or I may like one eye colour more than the others but then it has too many or not enough wrinkles to give character.

All in all WoW has the best support of any Blizzard games by far, I had an issue and they resolved it within 30minutes.

Well done for trying Blizzard you got yourself back into my good graces (you lost it after D3's release & AH)