WoW Subscriptions Dipped Again, But Content Coming Soon

the game is boring, i cancelled my account a week ago.

After playing for how many years?

Though, seriously, agreed.

In cataclysm every class is kind of the same...It`s so damn boring i tried it for 2 months and quit.TBC>Vanilla>Wotlk>Cata

To me WoW have started to lost quality big times, it used to have rock solid pathing, no-client update issues and no floor aggro ect.

Today thats common place, if Blizzard wants to keep their quality name its time to put that solid code back. Today its more of "overoptimized-we-want-more-players-for-the-same-cpu-time-and-bandwidth" code thats running on the servers.

Heck its so poorly done my toons for instance have already passed by that mining/flower node when it shows up and i have a "world ping" of around 30ms with no packetloss - Thats not quality Blizzard! So instead of just add more content that will have thoose NPC's stuck in the ground ect it might be time to undo the damage the over-optimizations have done first or the new content will NOT be as enjoyable!

Fix whats broken first! No one with a sane mind would add more rooms to a hotel with a foundation infested with termites! (bugs/overoptimized code)

Agree, way to much copy-paste rather than really new spells/abilitys/talents.

bye wow.... 7 years and im bored to tears.

Anyone want to buy an end game account with 7 lvl 85's and around 80k gold in it?

Maybe if they started to give a shit about PvP things could up. I mean all they do when it comes to balance in PvP is to keep things "playable". They could easily make it really balance and it bring it back as esport if they wanted to.

They used to have the excuse that it's hard to balance without affecting PvE but now they can make abilities work totally differently in PvP and PvE. They have absolutely no excuse. Every single patch they say "oh next patch, you'll see, it will be balanced" but it's the same bullshit every time.

How does overoptimized code work?

I am glad I never got sucked into this game. I wanted buy WOW in the very begining (very badly) but I didn't want to pay $15 to play a game that I already paid for. If you payed over the years to play and bought all of the expansions packs you would have payed over $1400 to play a single game. That is totally ridiculous. I haven't heard anything but I hope Diablo 3 isn't that way, then I would really have to restrain myself

Shouldn't most of you be in the wow forums.. Sounds like a bunch of whining.. Which is what made wow lame. They took out all the good stuff..

I haven't played in years, but I thought the game was fun. But it took too much time to do anything. I would spend half my time either going somewhere or waiting for an update to install. It moved too slow and I didn't have the time to dedicate to level up and play with everyone else I knew who had already leveled up.

I think everyone is waiting for Diablo 3.

Problem with WoW is every class is just like the others. No more "unique flavor". I can understand giving a "mini Mortal Strike" to another class, but giving it to half the classes? Same about Battle Rez, Replenishment, Paladins Aura buffs, and many others.
I actually thought it was fun in BC, where I could raid as feral - and be the best offtank in the entire guild, or with my undergeared Warlock that could make geared casters look silly.

It just became boring, although they did fix major issues (10 days trial, poor performance in a few situations, flight in Azeroth, outdated quests...)

And btw, I dont think WoW's expensive. I know it can be expensive for a kid, but anyone who works can pay day easily, and I dont know about you guys, but I find it very easy to spend more than $15 on a single night out (food, few drinks, parking fee, and so on).

Thats allot of life to put into a game...

I quit when they gave everyone healing abilities a rogue with healing abilities well that's just wrong.

The problem with wow is a hydra: it has sevral heads:
First off: if many people leav, then many others lost there friends which leads to them leaving which leads to other people without friends.. that leav and so on, so they must stop that.

second:
as for the reason leaving in first place:
Its all "more of the same, again" - times 100: we all got legendery once, we all made it to gladiator, we all got over 100k honor kills and over 200k gold we got flying mounts with rank 4 licens we raided we foguht we did it.
its all more of the same, nothing new, so how do you keep it new?
well first off, thats there job if i could tell you that I would be working for them...

but a good start would be more BGS.. like seriusly its the 7th year and we still play WSG regulary? check starcraft 2 out: over 50 semetrical maps.. for the same game type, all fun, and every season theres a map rottation, could I like,
or check leagues of legend: two types of map, once map for each, but they have colors varaity: some times it snows some times its dark ("scary") some times its plain

The other issue is: it feels like work, not play: you want some epic honor item? back in the day it used to be .. X amount of bgs, then they moved it to x*10 times bg.. and now it feels like x^30e bgs >_< seruisly?


TLDR:
1) more varaity (snow in wsg for example and.. more new maps for pvp)
2) reduce grind amount: if your plan was to make sure we spend time in the game, you over did it now we see how much time it takes and we dont want to spend that much time..
3) age: any one that played this game 7 years a go now days might be.. with a degree in a job and a kid so.. what do the next generation kids like? not to work for an mmo thats what..

I played WoW before any of the expansions came out grew tired of it then left it and never looked back. The problem is no matter how much new content they throw into it even entire expansion packs the core game-play stays the same and that is what gets boring.

The real reason why people do not quit MMORPG's so easily is because of the investment they already put into it. It's hard to stand up and walk away from something you put so much time, effort, and even money into.

WoW certainly is still the #1 dog in MMORPG's (based on subscriber amount) but its prime is now over and we will see more and more players eventually make the sacrifice and walk away. Within about 3-4 years I suspect that WoW will lose the #1 spot.

man, it is bad news when you add china and still loose a net 300K subscribers.

Enjoyed the game on and off for years after it was released with a set group of friends, but Cataclysm definitely killed it for me.

It's been a good run, but you can only renew the same game but so many times before it gets stale.

Over optimization can be several things, for instance you want a pathing routine to consume less cpu cycles. Well done optimization won't reduce the functionality while overdone so will resultimng in for instance mobs getting stuck with no way to reach its desitnation (it happens over and over in wow today). Another example could be optimization of the bandwith each player uses, a logic target is to reduce the range of visable objects in the gameworld that the server sends the player. Today that circle is VERY visable in WoW and mobs can litterary appear on the character without anything that should cause that like network, slow computer, server lag and the like. Thats over-optimization!

Hey now that I think of it: its on purpose that they do it, they just preper us for titan: making sure we will go for it instead of wow.

first they moved there main develop team from this to titan and placed the "noobs" on wow, then they make wow semi-suck to slowly shake off every one of it, 3rd wave is: luch titan and all join it as theres no competition.

(didnt Nostradamus say the world will end in 3 waves?
didnt blizzard say that Titan will "Capture the hearts and minds of many")

if only they will say that it will be released in the end of 2012 then ye =p gg lol

There are a lot of ways to blow through your money, yes. But I can't afford cable, or a smartphone, or to fix up our house. There's no way I can afford a subscription-based game, especially when I can't spend all night every night playing it. Do you know how much health insurance costs for a family? Ridiculous.

I thought Cataclysm brought some of the neatest additions to the game. We finally get to see Uldum, Mount Hyjal, and Gilneas. Vashj'ir is a really pretty area and the Goblin and Worgen starting areas are really kick-ass. The problem as I see it is that you can run through the new content so fast, but there is no real compelling reason to stay and see any of the new stuff. With the new Goblin and Worgen areas, you can't really do anything there once you finish. IMHO, at least Gilneas should have been a new capital city.

There are some elements that are still fun to me, but I agree with the guy who said that every class is interchangeable now. They want you to "bring the player, not the class." Well, some people suck, but if their class is unique, they might still have a role to play. If everything is equal, that uniqueness is no longer needed and someone who isn't as good at something else, but could fill a niche role pretty well is now unable to do much of anything with respect to end game content.

The other thing I notice is that in Cataclysm, the willingness of other players to tolerate any small mistake seems to be almost zero. They have the best looking water in any game I've seen, but after you've seen it, it's kinda "meh." I would rather they spiff up their textures so that every new dungeon doesn't look exactly like the old dungeons. Way too "cartoonish".

Just my $0.02.

It needs to go totally free to play with paid for expansions. £18 for 2 months is a rip off considering I'd rather buy a totally new game for half that.

The biggest problem in WoW is the same as the biggest problem in Rift and in Conan and in ... every other MMO ever made. It's that whole "same as it ever was" thing. In other words, once you've reached the level cap/gold cap/whatever cap and seen all the zones, played all the quests -- what the heck else is left to do?

With WoW the devs tried to fill that gap by making grinds -- buy a flying mount for a ridiculous amount of gold. And, by the way, you can earn gold by doing this daily quest over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and... until WoW starts to seem like your job, not a game. And then you get that mount (or whatever), and for a little while it's great, you have bragging rights, etc., but then you start to get bored again. Or worse, the devs give in to all the whiners complaining that THEY don't have the same shiny mount, so they change the game and basically just start GIVING it away, so the same thing you slaved six months for can now be had in a day. Turn that around to every damn aspect of the game -- gathering, crafting, gold, achievements, reputation, EVERYTHING -- and you see what WoW becomes "not fun" very quickly.

The payoff -- the addictive "kick" that keeps people coming back -- is new content. When they raise the level cap, you don't want to be left behind as everyone else progresses to 85, or whatever, but then you tear through to 85 and... now what? You've now seen all the NEW content, etc.

So there really are only a few choices for keeping the game alive.

One is just cater to the hardcore base whose life IS WoW; you know, the people who still raid every night after five years, the ones whose entire circle of friends is WoW players. These people will never quit, no matter what, so in one sense, if you keep them happy the game will continue. I mean heck, EverQuest 1 is still going, so why can't WoW?

The only other option -- the ONLY other option -- is more content. EverQuest got that one better than Blizzard, because they released a TON of patches and content updates, and they weren't years apart. Not only that, but the content was drastically different -- this one's the jungles, that one's the moon, this is the icy north. Also, EQ didn't foster the weaker players; when you died, you lost experience, and if you couldn't get back to your body, you could lose EVERYTHING. I'm not 100% sure that's a good design strategy, but it certainly made dying (losing) more risky.

In the end, content is what keeps us coming back to these games. If Blizzard can't release enough new content to keep players interested, WoW will eventually wither and die-- period. Time will tell.

I quit WoW 3 months ago after playing for 4 solid years. I don't miss it, but I can't say I hated the game at the end either. It was getting more of the same, and I agree that classes are too much alike. I understand the need to create efficent groups quickly (ie.: not having to wait hours to get a class with a specific buff and/or ability), but I think they pushed it too far. The buffs are all the same and practically any class can add that buff to the group.

Remember the time when shamans were horde-only and paladins were alliance-only? Back then, chosing a faction was a hard decision! But then, even chosing a race/class was a tough choice. Now, just take whatever the hell you want, name your char with a lot of k's, x's and y's and your good to go.

Still a great game, but a lot of people moved on.

BTW, "over optimization" is impossible. By definition, optimization is the act of maximizing efficiency with the ressources you have. If you augment performance to the detriment of functionnality, or vice versa, then it's no longer optimization.

It would be awesome of they actually added something like that on say a "hardcore" server, played EQ for years and didnt find the exp loss that bad. It keept the game clean from thoose that didnt belong in it. WoW allows everyone to advance no matter how suitable they are to the later game at the expence of their fellow players!

In my personal opinion, I couldn't stand WoW. It was too repetitive and end game wasn't really thrilling.

I found EVE online a much better quality and longer lasting game. There is no "End-Game" to EVE. There is no "Leveling". You will never be able to max out your character in the game. A player controlled universe is better than a static "good-vs-evil" one. Only downside - huge learning curve.

I personally left because they made the game too casual. When the made it casual, they attracted a lot of new players, but they took away it's longevity.

When you can just pop on, join a Que to get in a dungeon run, finish it in 5 mins with strangers on heroic mode without the need to communicate, it takes away any feeling of challenge and comradery with your groupmates.

The games attempt to make it accessible to the masses killed it for me.

I loved vanilla. I loved TBC. Then everything went to crap.

1. Cross server BGs, instances, etc. They forfeited server community.
2. Homogenization (sp I know) of classes/specs/attributes/abilities. I was a shadow priest. I loved pvp at 60 (also raided at 60 which made pvp even more fun ) At 70, I was the mana battery. I had a roll. I had a purpose. At 80 I was just another dps caster.
3. Changing race/server/sex/alligence What's the point.

could go on.

For games like these to be successful, they need ways to force the introverts to want to group up and work together with others and they need to be forced to communicate in order to achieve their goals. This creates bonds, the type of bonds required to get people playing their game for longer periods of time.

With all the changes they made, only raiding requires this, and raiding is very time consuming. If you want to be more casual, you don't get this experience.