Blizzard Speeding Up WoW Development

I'm going to be honest here - I really think that the drop has more to do with the Economy than anything else.

Half my guild WANTS to play, but work and money have kept them.

Many people I know stopped playing WoW because of the huge delays between content releases and the slow process by which different classes feel identical across a single role (tank/heal/mdps/rdps/pvp).

Plus new content has gotten easier and easier. It really depends on who your targeting. WoW does an excellent job of targeting the casual gamer as opposed people that love extremely challenging content (my old guild). From a financial standpoint this probably makes sense, but you lose long term subscriptions from nerdy theory-crafters like me who get bored.

It's regurgitated crap. Dumbed down old instances to release as "new and improved!" content.

After 5 years of playing on and off I'm finally over the game.
Out with the old, in with the new!

That and the fact that expansions and new content can't keep people playing this game anymore. The core mechanics of the game are still the same as they were when WoW was released and frankly, they are starting to get boring. What they need to do is keep the content going but they also need to get a WoW successor going. As someone who's been playing since Vanilla, this game is starting to get old and while a lot of the old players (myself included) buy the expansions to see the new stuff, we get bored of it quickly because, deep down it's still the same game we've been playing for 5+ years.

I'd be willing to bet that it's the way the gear-obtaining structure reverted back to pre-LK days. In WotLK, a lot of people were blessed with the easy way to obtain epic-quality gear (doing heroic 5-mans, and ToC, etc). But now that players must commit to serious raiding (or constant heroics to trade in points) for epic gear.

mere! lol! Even with that many subscribers, Activision seems quite well off.

There's no one reason. Saying "people got bored" is a huge generalization. People have been getting bored for 6 years. As early as 2005 you had people threatening to leave because Blizzard was "lazy" with content. The only "dumbed down old instances" have been the two 'newest' 5mans, which are still much different than their first incarnations, and most new players haven't experienced them before anyways. The idea that revitalizing older content is "lazy" kinda surprises me, since many people complain that their old favorites are never run anymore. Besides, Blizzard has clearly put more work in Cataclysm than any prior expansion, and it brings new lifer to the game that's been dead for many years.

Why did subscriptions drop? Many reasons. The game is getting on in its years, there are many cheaper and newer options. Of course the economy makes things a lot more difficult for many people as well. Personally, I haven't been playing as much because I've been busy.


But really, don't use your personal negative feelings about WoW or Blizzard to try and explain the decrease, it's just ignorant.

The reason is that everyone knows Rift is out, and it's a huge upgrade from WoW.

"The reason is that everyone knows Rift is out, and it's a huge upgrade from WoW."

I really did lol at this. Just like LotrO and AoC and Warhammer and Aion were all huge upgrades? Rift is probably the least innovative MMO in recent memory.

That ^

That doesn't stop people from buying Apple products. People like substance AND/OR style. Blizz doesn't seem to have anything at this point. SC2 was hyped up and lasted two days of play. Expansions take 2 years? Right..

D3 is going to be just like D2 with ZOMG Dx11 graphics. 10 years for that.

Titan will be outdated when it arrives too.

the game is dead...it's not the economy...trust me, a game addict will do anything to keep the habbit going

I no longer play the game, not because of the game itself, but because the people who play the game can be so damn frustrating to play with I couldn't take it anymore.

BUT, assuming I still cared and played the game, I would say that I would rather have higher quality content rather than quicker content. Doesn't matter how quickly you create the content, if it sucks people won't play the game.

And the game is far from being dead. 11.4 MILLION people is still a ton of people, at least 3 times the amount of subscribers of any other MMO currently out. We may be seeing the very beginnings of WoW's decline, but still, the game is FAR from dying.

Seriously? I think you forgot one of the biggest points of blizzard games...replayability. Sc2's campaign was short, yes, but don't tell me you're blind to the fact of so many mods and custom games out there that exists on sc2. Not to mention the little something called battlenet where there are millions of other people on ... -_- Blizzard's games are not for you if you are looking for uber long solo gaming content. D3's systems are so vastly different from D2, that your statement reflects pure ignorance of the game. It's like saying every FPS is the same because you hold a gun and shoot bullets at bad guys. GG

Another two "lol"s about two different things.

1. SC2 lasted two days? I've been playing the game with 5 friends just about everyday since release. Many others have too. It's got tons of custom games, and a huge following community.
2. WoW is "dead"? Yeah, it lost some people, it's still got more than 10 million. If WoW is "dead", I'd hate to know what you consider other MMOs.

WOW needs an overhaul if it wants to last until Titan comes out in a couple years--a true expansion that actually modifies the gameplay. Some people would hate such an expansion, but others will appreciate it, and that's okay.

The main problem is that they've been playing it safe with expansions. There should also be more ridiculously impossible bosses so that the world first takes a month for anyone to achieve for each one. Maybe I have a skewed view though, since people I watched used to get world-first kills now and then.

I left wow because I became bored with the game. No mater how they dressed it up it was really always the same, and that's not to mention that they are always screwing with class mechanics. And don't get me started on teh gutting of Tree of Life.

all those 600k went to Play RIFT wich is 10x better than wow , with the same Ui improved combat system graphics and so o .

You know why almost no one makes a positive statement about Blizz (fanboiz if you like), it's because they're playing right now, having fun.

Haters gonna hate, people.

The only thing I whine about in WoW, is their obsession about making "Guild Progress". That only lasts while u're a kid in high school, cause once you start working, you're a slave to your boss /cry

Cheers!

"WOW needs an overhaul if it wants to last until Titan comes out in a couple years"

So WoW is going to go from 11.4 million players to 0 in two years? I'm having a hard time seeing that happen. Any drop is certainly bad, but again, they're still well ahead of the competition. "I find the game boring" =/= "the game is going to die"

"There should also be more ridiculously impossible bosses so that the world first takes a month for anyone to achieve for each one. Maybe I have a skewed view though, since people I watched used to get world-first kills now and then."

You do have a skewed view. Though many people are always complaining about content being "too easy", or that "the world's top guild beat so-and-so boss too quickly", the vast majority of people playing the game want to be able to play the game. There aren't many people who find it fun to be excluded from content because they don't have enough time to invest in it. This speaking as someone who loved the vanilla raids, I doubt I would have seen much content at all had I not had a huge amount of time spent ingame.

It's also because the angry crowd is always the loudest. But yeah, I agree.

Of course they did. Keep telling yourself that. That's literally the only reason to quite a game subscription.

If you truly believe what you said, I honestly pity you.

Hahhahahahahahaa

LotR - Not bad, just not "enough" of the world at launch.

AoC - was great until level 20. There's a REASON it died.

WHOnline - Not bad, but that "awesome" PVP didn't turn out to be.

Rift - Not bad, but not much different that WoW, or the three above.

Some people like different things. You see, some of us HAVE been there and done all that, and there is a reason that WoW STILL has 11+ million subscribers - and those others don't.

What you like =/= what a lot of others like.

And right now - MMO game play is some of the cheapest entertainment around. Try going to just ONE movie, with popcorn and a drink for under $15 - let alone 30 days of entertainment.

I thought Cataclysm was a nice addition to the game. How ever I haven't been in a decent guild since the days of the Burning Crusades. It is pretty hard to get into a decent guild now, at least on Aerie Peak it was. You try and PUG a heroic instance, and people expect perfection out of everyone. Nothing beats waiting 40 minutes to get into a run, and have the group disband at the first boss, sometimes even first pull. Very few people seem to have any patience in the game any more. So I cancelled my account a few months ago and have been playing Star Trek Online since.

The game is making a Hell of a lot of money for blizzard..
But I nolonger play...Like the storyline but I am not gonna dedicate 1 sec more to repetitive play mechanics, and the game got to watered down for Core gamers and is now for your grandma and mother to play

"got to watered down for Core gamers and is now for your grandma and mother to play "
Complete bullshit. The two most common arguments for WoW are "it's too difficult to get into any raids!" and "it's too easy and anyone can do it!" It's neither. Even in WotLK, you had so many players bitching about it being "casual" and yet HM Yogg+0 and then LK25H were easily the most difficult fights in the game at their release (according to the guilds who downed them first).

If you're casual, you should still be able to raid. If you're "serious", there's plenty of difficult content.

The days of instances being hard are over. WOW is 100% for casual gamers, the hardcore pvper's such as myself, laugh at how easily it is to get pvp gear now. This game has been dumb-downed over and over again. I'm awaiting diablo 3... hopefully that will spark my enthusiasm for blizzard again.

"Complete bullshit. The two most common arguments for WoW"

Sorry Klbg but your are wrong Game is two easy PERIOD

They're faster at consuming its content because they've put this game on easy mode. Get the right setup and you can kill everything with the press of a few buttons. tab-1-2-3-tab-1-2-3-tab-1-2-3

Wow has evolved into a game of wack-a-mole vs the GCD. Once you utilized the mechanics to play the content, now you play the mechanics instead of the content. It's tedious and it's not fun.

I stopped playing not because I thought it was too easy, or hard, or lack of content, or anything else like that.

I simply stopped playing because MMO's inherently need/require a LOT of time, and.. well..

I wanted a real life.