World of Warcraft: Current Year

xzi

Mouthbreather
7,526
6,763
I'll stay subbed because of tokens, but wow I didn't expect it to drop another 2 million. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually continue to pull off the yearly expansion idea and making them 60$.
 

Kuro

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
8,757
22,720
Maybe they'll have to tighten their belts, and fire the 3213033104204031032023 new people they added to their team that they blamed for fucking up WoD because they had to adjust to a larger team.

Then they'll have a nice excuse for fucking up the next expansion: Getting used to a smaller team!
 

Bondurant

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
3,845
4,792
zrC33oF.jpg
 

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
<Gold Donor>
16,449
12,418
It's just a normal product life cycle. To the T. WoW lasted longer than any other. But it's bound to happen to any product or service no matter how much it tries to diversify it's mechanics.
 

Runnen

Vyemm Raider
1,849
4,513
Serious question, is there even a dude character on that above screenshot? Cause I honestly can't tell..

As for WoW, I'm not happy about the loss of that many subs but I can't say I'm surprised either. I'm sure a lot of people will return once the expansion hits, but it will never be what it was, and I'm fine with it. EQ is still going a decade after its supposed downfall, and still releasing new content, I'd be happy if WoW just kept going the same way for some more years. I don't need twitter functionnalities, amazing crossrealm technology or the latest innovations in facial emotes, just make some new zones now and then, create lots of text quests, make a short cinematic to wrap up the big quest chains from time to time and I'd be a happy customer.
 

Gorehack

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,534
40
Somewhere in Blizz Headquarters, Chris Metzen, Samwise Didlier, and Mike Morhaine are sitting around a conference table going

"Hmm.....every Horde/Orc centered xpac we release, we lose around 3 million players."

"Yeah, that's crazy. It's almost makes me want to start focusing on some of the other races. almost"

"Yeah, I am sort of worried about Gamescom on the 6th when we tell them about the new Xpac Orcs or the Orc Seas! Featuring THRALL!"

"...are.....are we hopelessly out of touch?"

"No no, Metzen. It's the player base who is wrong"
 

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
<Gold Donor>
16,449
12,418
Somewhere in Blizz Headquarters, Chris Metzen, Samwise Didlier, and Mike Morhaine are sitting around a conference table going

"Hmm.....every Horde/Orc centered xpac we release, we lose around 3 million players."

"Yeah, that's crazy. It's almost makes me want to start focusing on some of the other races. almost"

"Yeah, I am sort of worried about Gamescom on the 6th when we tell them about the new Xpac Orcs or the Orc Seas! Featuring THRALL!"

"...are.....are we hopelessly out of touch?"

"No no, Metzen. It's the player base who is wrong"
What needs to happen is for Blizzard to realize they need longer story arcs again. Warcraft 3 and frozen throne were pinnacle to set up WOLTK. It was an epic story that lasted years. It needs to go back to roots of its universe and build upon what happens after Lich King and expand on those stories wrapping up each arc with a climatic uptick through 2-3 expansions. Right now it's all over the fucking board. And it's annoying as hell.
 

Palum

what Suineg set it to
25,783
39,251
Right now it's season one TNG. Just random shit keeps popping up and it's kind of OK but you really don't care. GET RID OF TASHA YAR ALREADY
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
I'll stay subbed because of tokens, but wow I didn't expect it to drop another 2 million. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually continue to pull off the yearly expansion idea and making them 60$.
Its not to surprising when they had only two content updates one of which had no real content in it this expansion. Its going towards end of expansion burnout mode as normal it just hit it faster because of the lack of stuff added. For myself I am pretty much only subbed at the moment because of wow tokens. I have enough cash to last me till the end of the year and then I shall see if its worth maintaining depending what the pace of the next expansion release is.

Honestly I enjoyed WOD quite a bit it was just that pretty much all the stuff I liked was in at launch and I have pretty much finished it up now.
 

Column_sl

shitlord
9,833
7
If you look at the Heroes of the Storms models I should expect WOW to look at least that good by now, but it really doesn't.

I think they are at a point where there is no way in hell they are going to risk launching another MMO, and the chance to damage their company.

They will ride it out on Hearthstone, HOTS and possibly OverWatch. WoW will just be something that exists no matter how bad the subs get.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
On the plus side for blizzard just as wow starts its decline into its senior year of still making ass loads of money but not the monolith it used to be its other properties like hearth stone/heroes of the storm are coming on strong and diablo 3 even though I really didn't care for it that much is cranking along pretty damn nicely. Probably healthier for a company to have a bunch of strong brand than for it to have one golden cow propping them up with a few hangers on.
 

Qhue

Tranny Chaser
7,586
4,536
So my buddy got sucked back in due to a "come back for 7 days" promo and thus I dusted off my Goblin and started running around with him in Pandaria.

His first comments other than "I have no idea how my spells work anymore" was that the game seemed dumbed down and too easy. Granted he is exposed to outdated content and the older expansions always get trivialized to a degree as part of the catch-up mechanism but I don't think he was referring to character power so much as overall play.

He was always a 'special needs' mage who would cast Blizzard while arcane specced because he thought falling ice would do more damage than a light bubble, but when someone who is fairly terrible at the game declares that things are too milquetoast and dull then you know you have problems.
 

Valderen

Space Pirate
<Bronze Donator>
4,524
2,727
While it's true that the game has dumbed down somewhat(ok maybe a lot).

The thing is that, I think we reached a point where it might not be possible to do something that will not feel dumbed down because we now have such a deep understanding of mechanics and gameplay.

The sense of familiarity is such that nothing feels deep and complex anymore.
 

Heallun

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,100
1,073
While it's true that the game has dumbed down somewhat(ok maybe a lot).

The thing is that, I think we reached a point where it might not be possible to do something that will not feel dumbed down because we now have such a deep understanding of mechanics and gameplay.

The sense of familiarity is such that nothing feels deep and complex anymore.
Dunno, my rotations in ffxiv are always pretty in depth while the encounters keep being varied enough. It's mostly just dealing with an ass of cooldowns and off the gcd abilities while keeping your gcd skills firing in the right order. This is made more difficult by how clunky hitting off the gcd skills are, but it definitely makes it more challenging. :3