WoW Subscriptions Dipped Again, But Content Coming Soon

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I am pinning my hopes on GW2 and the Dynamic Scalable events system they have planned, that along with a persistant world, where the world changes based on the players reactions to the dynamic events, resulting in new content every single time you log on to play even at the end level of the game!

I simply cannot wait to see if it is good as it looks right now as 3 years of LOTRO grind has almost put me off going to Mordor!
 
They can eat it. I seriously got so sick and tired of the devs - that it really pushed me to say screw it and never come back.


Every 2 weeks it seems, they drastically change something - whether that be a class/spec/ability - and I honestly cannot stand how dumb they are to not be able to just balance something.


They also turned all classes into the same song and dance - starting with hybrids being able to perform just as well, if not better than pures, while also giving them so many more options and opportunities.
 
I think the the developers of the game have gotten bored with the game itself and need to be fired/removed in order to keep the game going itself. Im not gonna give up all the playtime I put towards the game just because some other person "gave up"........
 
[citation][nom]MasterMace[/nom]They crapped all over their core, and now the leaves and branches are falling off.I cancelled over a year ago. They are making the game junk: easy mechanics in fights that cater to casual players who couldn't navigate their way out of an open paper bag. citation]
Instead of making false statements....try playing the game now. Since patch 4.0, people playing Tank roles have had to relearn their role as threat generation for tanking classes was reduced. With Cataclysm's launch, people playing healer roles have had to learn how to heal properly. With the threat generation reduction to tanks, those playing DPS roles have had to learn to adapt to tanks that really aren't. The old "tank and spank" method no longer works. If a death knight pushes for maximum DPS, they will generate more threat than the tank can and end up wiping the group. With Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman being "re-released" as level 85 Heroic Dungeons, melee DPS characters have become pretty much useless as the AOE damage is high enough in some cases to 1-shot any melee class regardless of health pool (250K DPS is impossible to survive). If you play a melee class, you have to know exactly when that AOE attack is coming and where you need to be to avoid it. In some fights, having 2 melee DPS is an automatic wipe. There are several instances where "move out of the fire" simply doesn't work as the fire does more damage per second than any player has health.

As others have stated, the game does require a LOT of grinding. Blizzard added "Firelands" with the 4.2 patch. It takes at minimum 3 days to actually get into the Firelands "quest" area. Once there, it's all daily quests to collect marks. It takes 12 marks to get into the Firelands quest area...and you can only get 4 marks a day. Once you get there, you need another 120 marks to choose a faction to get reputation with (which means more endless grinding for little reward). Personally, I think Blizzard made a huge mistake by centering quest lines around daily quests. Getting the marks necessary to progress through the Firelands quest area takes several days, and results in more grinding for several more days...which, you guessed it. Results in even more grinding. Constantly grinding through the exact same daily quests for numerous days removes any fun you could possibly have from the game. You game has become nothing but an endless grind with a rather lame "reward" at the end.

I can understand the shift from 40man raids to 10 and 25man raids...as well as the dungeon finder system. On my realm, it's next to impossible to put together a 25man group. A 40man group would never happen. The way guilds on my realm have gotten, putting together a 10man group can take an hour or more alone.

The addition of "guild reputation" and "guild experience" have made finding decent guilds a nightmare. People were already dumb enough to treat the game like a job and require others to fill out "applications" to join guilds. Now, they'll require you to fill out that same "application" and IF you meet their requirements, invite you to the guild. If you can't dedicate X amount of time to the game, they immediately kick you (some guilds are requiring upwards of 40hrs per week).

I was planning to jump ship when Diablo3 gets released, but with the "real money" auction house being announced, I'm considering just jumping ship from gaming in general. The world is run by Greed...this is the sole reason the economy is in the condition it's currently in. Had greed not taken over..the world economy would be solid. I'm getting tired of feeding the endless greed. Adding "real money" as a currency in a game doesn't avoid the "in-game" economy from being destroyed. It promotes it. The "in-game" currency in Diablo3 will be worthless the day the game launches. If Blizzard hasn't made the changes necessary to make WoW enjoyable to play again with the next "content patch". I'll probably leave at that point. If Blizzard doesn't reconsider the idiotic idea of using "real money" as currency alongside "in-game currency" such as their typical "gold currency"...I probably won't waste my money on Diablo3.....I'll just give up on gaming.
 
almost 2 billion a year and activision is still struggling with this company underneath them? LOL they must SUCKKK at managing a company maybe I should try my hand at being a ceo. That 2 billion is even counting software sales just subscription PER year crazy!!!!
 
[citation][nom]Neog2[/nom]almost 2 billion a year and activision is still struggling with this company underneath them? LOL they must SUCKKK at managing a company maybe I should try my hand at being a ceo. That 2 billion is even counting software sales just subscription PER year crazy!!!![/citation]
The problem isn't Activision. Activision isn't over Blizzard. However, the person who ruined Activision's reputation was made the CEO of the merged Activision Blizzard when Vivendi bought out Activision.

I have no issues with a business making as much money as they possibly can, however, his way of trying actually undercuts greater future profits for the here and now. guitar Hero which just a couple of years ago was a huge franchise sits dead because of it. And there is no mistaking the change Blizzard has undergone post merger. I seriously doubt Mike Morhaime would have ever considered a real money AH for Diablo.
 
You can only fixup an old car so many times to make it fun to drive; but in the end you still have an "old" car.

Wish Blizz would stop giving this old clunker an overhaul and come out with a new game.
 
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]That would be something I would agree with IF the decline had been gradual.Now Wrath subscriptions were stagnant, until the games release in China which added a net 500k subscribers to the 11.5 million WoW ended BC with. Cataclysm, which seemed like a half hearted attempt of an expansion, is where all the decrease comes from. they have lost nearly a million in just 6 months time. Losing subs that fast is not just a game getting old, it's players being discontent with what the devs are making and decisions Blizz is making.Keep in mind a lot of players who left are dedicated Warcraft fans, like myself, who feel like the dedicated fanbase is no longer welcome in the game.[/citation]

First of all, the game has been in china for years, shortly after BC Release. (They had to put skin on Nightbane before release due to Zombie regulation in China).

That being said, Blizzard's distribution into China was handled through licensing the game to specific gaming companies withing China to handle subscription fees and maintenance. This was mainly done so due to laws in china regarding online gaming and its pay structure. (PPM based subscriptions due to addiction.) They did not released a localized version of the game, run on blizzards servers so that arena/raid progression could be legitimized. Instead of forcing Chinese guilds to import other territorial versions, EU/Oceanic. (Paragon/DREAM being a key example of Korean/Chinese merging with EU guilds to attain progression.)

But I digress.

In the end, everyone quits for their own personal reasons. Having played the game since the day it came out, the biggest factor for why people quit is because other people quit.

I have ran raiding guilds, (Vanilla/BC/Wrath/Cataclysm, top 100 Horde world in BC through Sunwell, 88th Muru, 76th KJ) once one or two people quit from the core raid group, it spreads. It is like a virus. Regardless of the original reasons why people quit, mainly real life issues or school issues, it has a negative effect on moral and it exponentially increases the rate of attrition.

Unless you play the game on a top 20 server, you have a hard time recruiting to feel the gaps in that kind of progression. There is so much competition for cross server transfers that unless you are pushing top 100-200 in the US/EU, you are left fighting for scraps.

It is also very difficult on people who join established guilds. Its like starting a new job with a bunch of people who have been doing it for years together and are quick to point out your failures and how you are not as good as someone else.

The culture of raiding guilds destroy themselves from within, one person quitting will most always lead to 2-5 others following shortly after. if you do not replace them with competent players that most everyone likes then you might as well just fold the guild and go casual until the next expansion.

But cataclysms mass exodus was mainly due to change of mechanics when it comes to healing. Healers either quit or rolled DPS after the first week. without the glut of healing options it put a stress on the ecosystem which in turn made the game frustrating for a lot of people causing them to quit in turn.

In the end though, the game is loosing players just from the fact that it is a 7yr old product and it's ability to create interest and keep interest in its existing players will wain over time regardless of progression, expansions and mechanics.

On a side note and please don't turn this into a D3 Internet requirement hate thread, but I played WoW and continue to play WoW because of the people I play it with. That being said I am looking forward to D3 coming out because I know a lot of people who played WoW that will be playing this and continuing online relationships and experiences with the people who have quit WoW is something that I look forward to more then the game itself.
 
The worst mistake Blizzard ever made was remove the raiding hierarchy between the 25-player and 10-player raids. Using "but the boss drops fewer pieces of loot" as a way to differentiate the two is what killed it for a lot of end-game raiders. Trying to herd 25 cats is a lot of work; remove the incentive, and you wind up with a lot of 10-mans and very little epic-feel left. The least they could've done was limited the new DPS legendary caster staff to just 25-mans, and they couldn't even do that.
 
Wow sucks big time now for old players... it is so obvious that they made the choice to make the game accessible to the masses taking out all the good stuff that made it such a great game during TBC...
 
Wow sucks big time now for old players... it is so obvious that they made the choice to make the game accessible to the masses taking out all the good stuff that made it such a great game during TBC...
 
Wow sucks big time now for old players... it is so obvious that they made the choice to make the game accessible to the masses taking out all the good stuff that made it such a great game during TBC...
 
Wow sucks big time now for old players... it is so obvious that they made the choice to make the game accessible to the masses taking out all the good stuff that made it such a great game during TBC...
 
Wow sucks big time now for old players... it is so obvious that they made the choice to make the game accessible to the masses taking out all the good stuff that made it such a great game during TBC...
 
I quit because it was time to admit that all good things come to an end. I have a long list of what I disliked about the game, but Blizzard losing 900000 subscribers 8 months after Cataclysm's release is better than any list. It speaks for itself.
 
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