Mists of Pandaria discussion

[Taelas]

My point is, you cannot compare WoW to any other MMO. It is an entirely different beast. You are looking at ants and trying to compare their life cycles to bears. It doesn't work.

How is WoW a different beast from other MMOs? What is your criteria for an MMO that makes such a comparison not work?

I was exaggerating before. You can draw parallels, but don't expect them to apply. WoW is just unlike any other MMO, simply due to its completely massive size.

There is also a fallacy in expecting things to happen simply because they have happened before.

[Lissa]

Now, sit down and actually analyze the data.

Yes, let's.

Every single MMO out there with 150k+ subscribers has lost subs in 2011 except Eve and Dofus. And the number of gained subscribers in both Eve and Dofus do not account for the loss of subs in Aion nor WoW (and Rift is losing subs, not gaining them). If WoW was losing subs because of competition, why have they lost so many (almost 1 Million) in the 6 months following the release of Cataclysm if it were really due to competition?

Your argument is nonsense when applied to Rift. You say it "lost" subscribers, but that's silly - Rift only came into existence in 2011. So obviously, its numbers must either be added to the market share (unlikely, because it declined in 2011), or coming from some other game. What game is that? Maybe we should go look at the threads on the Lounge, which tell us that at least some WoW players we all know and love went to play Rift for awhile. Does that not seem a likely source of bleed?

And don't count Aion out. Just because they're decreasing, doesn't mean there is no effect. Absent Aion, some of those three million mostly Korean players might have chosen to say in WoW, or joined WoW. That's all competition, and it affects Blizzard's numbers.

Nobody is arguing that this is exclusively due to competition. Bolty, TD, and others have all suggested the obvious argument: WoW is getting old and boring. Seven years is an awful long time. Some of that 1 million decline are surely WoW players leaving the MMO market entirely. But not all of them - that would imply no other MMO is losing subscribers, when, as you rightly point out, almost all of them are.

Come on Jester, I know you can analyze way better than you have been in this post so far. There is no good reason to see why WoW has lost 800k subscribers when every MMO out there has been losing subs since right around June of this year with the exceptions of Eve and Dofus (which don't account for those lost subs, and again, look at Rifts, it jumped to 500k at it's launch or shortly after, but has already lost 100k before June hit).

WoW has lost 800,000 subscribers since mid-2010, not since mid-2011. The overall market has been declining since the beginning of 2011. Rift began competing in March 2011, when it launched, so that should affect the late 2011 figures. That's half a million entrants into the arena, some of whom we *know* came from WoW, because they're here on the forum.

Look at the data again Jester, look at how Blizzard reacted at Blizzcon, they're losing subs and they have no real competition to blame for those losses.

There is no law saying Blizzard's subs should remain fixed. Indeed, what they have already accomplished is an amazing feat of "defying gravity" - an MMO that retains a colossal subscriber base for seven whole years. The usual lifespan of a game, even an MMO, is a fraction of that length. Losing subscribers after a long time is a perfectly normal thing for a game.

Indeed, one of the major mechanisms by which this happens, is only too obvious from this thread: Novelty wears off, boredom sets in, and expectations rise to unsustainable levels. WoW can't keep its head above water forever, no matter how good their design is. Video games are not eternal. What we are saying, is that this is a natural, slow death that the game is dying. What you seem to be saying is that there was a Cataclysm Cataclysm, and that the stats show it. There wasn't, and they don't.

-Jester

Did you bother to look at the charts at all there Jester? Take another look at Rift, launch in March, pops up to 600k in April/early May, drops to 450k subs in June/July. Now, given, it's only been three months, but that's a drop in subscriptions from it's peak.

Now you say, don't count Aion out. Ummm...4 Million subs in 2009, down to 3 Million subs in 2011.

And then we have WoW, been bouncing between 12 Million and 11.5 between late 2008 (launch of Wrath) to late 2010 (launch of Cata). After 6 months, WoW dropped 800k subs and looks to be continuing downward from information being shown by Blizzard's actions.

You can try and massage the results however you like, but the over-riding situation here is this: WoW is losing subscriptions because of a change in how they do things. It can be seen with the start of Wrath, but stayed pretty constant once is dropped down, but right now, the situation is does not look to be following that with WoW by the way Blizzard is acting.

"Here, have 4 months of play time if you buy the CE of Diablo 3." "Have Diablo 3 free if you pay for a 1 year subscription to WoW." You start to see the point yet? Blizzard is scrambling and they know the player base is not happy with the direction it is going. They are trying to stave off the loss of subscriptions anyway they have, even going so far as to try to mimic The Old Republic's companion aspect. Blizzard is flayling about to try and hold subs and it's not working.

Next week will give us a picture of just how bad the situation is when ATVI releases 3 Quarter results.

My point is, you cannot compare WoW to any other MMO. It is an entirely different beast. You are looking at ants and trying to compare their life cycles to bears. It doesn't work.

How is WoW a different beast from other MMOs? What is your criteria for an MMO that makes such a comparison not work?

I was exaggerating before. You can draw parallels, but don't expect them to apply. WoW is just unlike any other MMO, simply due to its completely massive size.

There is also a fallacy in expecting things to happen simply because they have happened before.

Simply put, wrong. Look at the graphs that were posted. Look at what happens with successful MMOs. They all die out eventually. So far the longest running MMO that has continued to grow is EVE. Given, it's subscriber base is lower than WoW, but you do have to give some credit that they are able to keep people that active for that long without seeing any dips.

[Tuftears]

I heard there was a thread for talking about Mists of Pandaria, but I seem to have mislaid it...

So, talents revamp - is the idea that druids choose a cat talent at level 15, a healing talent at level 30, etc.? Or does each spec have its own talent tree? What do y'all think?

[Taelas]

So, talents revamp - is the idea that druids choose a cat talent at level 15, a healing talent at level 30, etc.? Or does each spec have its own talent tree? What do y'all think?

There's only one talent tree per class. So you choose a cat talent at 15, healing at 30, etc.

Personally, I hope the eventual abilities will feel very equal, but I honestly doubt it. (For example, in the Warrior talent tree, the level 90 ability I choose will be Shockwave for Protection, and Avatar for Fury, if nothing changes.)

[Concillian]

Personally, I hope the eventual abilities will feel very equal, but I honestly doubt it. (For example, in the Warrior talent tree, the level 90 ability I choose will be Shockwave for Protection, and Avatar for Fury, if nothing changes.)

Did you look at warrior tier 2? The "self healing" tier?

There's second wind (the "PvP" healing option).
Then for PvE it's victory rush has no requirement to activate, but on a 30 second cooldown and with a 20 rage cost or enraged regen (unchanged from current).

ER is 30% heal over 10 seconds, a slow HOT... on a *3 minute* cooldown that requires saving berserker rage so you can be sure you're enraged when you need to use it.

VR is 20% heal (can be glyphed to 30% now, unsure if that will remain) INSTANT ... on a 30 second cooldown. That all you need to activate it is 20 rage.

Unless 20 rage is SUPER SUPER valuable, I don't see many people choosing enraged regen.
All those differences mean a lot 3 mintues vs. 30 seconds... HUGE
Instant vs. HOT pretty big thing too, instant is way better than HOT.
30% vs 20%? Well I think this is offset by instant vs. HOT. If you can glyph for 30% on VR then there may be more merit.

Also putting shockwave on the level 90 tier sucks. Shockwave is most useful in 5 mans, where it works as active mitigation (stun) or an interrupt, or AoE threat or sometimes all of the above. It's so nice to have in a 5 man, and we're going to be stuck without it for much of the time that 5 mans will be very relevant content.

Avatar is potentially significantly more useful as a raiding tank, so if you optimize for raids, then shockwave becomes kinda this lame duck talent that has a very limited window of usefulness as the "5-man heroic" talent.

They're going to have to add some significant tanking downside to Avatar to keep raid tanks from taking it. Tank DPS isn't absolutely critical, but DPS is DPS.

[Taelas]

I cannot agree that an instant heal is automatically way better than a HOT. A HOT will be useful even if your healers manage to land enough heals after you activated it that you didn't need it, whereas an instant heal is completely wasted (or completely wastes the healer's mana, instead). That said, you're absolutely right that in most cases, it's better. The cooldown difference alone pretty much makes the choice a no-brainer.

Enraged Regeneration will be better for Fury warriors, however. As an Enrage effect, their Mastery increases it by quite a bit. My Fury set, which is awful, lets my Enraged Regeneration heal for 75% of my health.

As for the 90 tier, yeah, I don't really see the idea in putting Shockwave that late. It is certainly most useful in 5-mans, though I tank too many groups of adds in raids -- both during trash and during boss fights -- to abandon it that easily. The stun component is enough to make it useful even on single targets, too. For instance, it's great on the intermission phases on Ragnaros; any stun on a Son is good, and one that can hit more? Gold. The fact that it's an AE means I can even use it while tanking Lava Scions. I can see that usefulness disappearing as the group's DPS increases, but still, it's nice to have. (My guild has yet to kill Ragnaros on normal mode, so take that for what it's worth.)

Avatar is a DPS increase. Useful, sure, but as a tank, I don't strictly speaking need DPS. Control, on the other hand, is in extremely short supply, and Shockwave provides it, even if it isn't on bosses.

But this is something of a moot point; it seems they want you to be able to swap talent choices as easily as you swap glyphs. In that case, I will simply use Shockwave on the fights where it's useful, and Avatar on single-target boss fights.

[Jester]

Did you bother to look at the charts at all there Jester? Take another look at Rift, launch in March, pops up to 600k in April/early May, drops to 450k subs in June/July. Now, given, it's only been three months, but that's a drop in subscriptions from it's peak.

Once again: Rift did not exist in 2010. Therefore, it is one potential source of bleed from WoW during the 2011 year. I do not see how this is even slightly controversial.

Now you say, don't count Aion out. Ummm...4 Million subs in 2009, down to 3 Million subs in 2011.

This is in no way a response to what I wrote:

Just because they're decreasing, doesn't mean there is no effect. Absent Aion, some of those three million mostly Korean players might have chosen to say in WoW, or joined WoW. That's all competition, and it affects Blizzard's numbers

Indeed, what I wrote seems a pretty decent response to your response, so I'll just leave it.

You can try and massage the results however you like, but the over-riding situation here is this: WoW is losing subscriptions because of a change in how they do things. It can be seen with the start of Wrath, but stayed pretty constant once is dropped down, but right now, the situation is does not look to be following that with WoW by the way Blizzard is acting.

Either your ability to pick out causes from a complex mess of interacting factors is substantially better than mine, or you're just writing whatever causal story you prefer onto the data. What makes your story better than, say, Bolty's?

"Here, have 4 months of play time if you buy the CE of Diablo 3." "Have Diablo 3 free if you pay for a 1 year subscription to WoW." You start to see the point yet?

As I said elsewhere, Blizzard does not want to compete with themselves. Therefore, they package their games together, to try and soften the blow.

Next week will give us a picture of just how bad the situation is when ATVI releases 3 Quarter results.

Yes, no doubt it will be terrible for them, having the most successful MMO ever by a factor of merely 3.9, rather than 4. They should probably just fire the whole "B team" now, and be done with it. If they continue at this precipitous rate of decline, WoW will cease to exist by... 2023! And, by a mere 2019, it won't even have the most subscribers of any MMO ever. Disaster!

-Jester

[Lissa]

Did you bother to look at the charts at all there Jester? Take another look at Rift, launch in March, pops up to 600k in April/early May, drops to 450k subs in June/July. Now, given, it's only been three months, but that's a drop in subscriptions from it's peak.

Once again: Rift did not exist in 2010. Therefore, it is one potential source of bleed from WoW during the 2011 year. I do not see how this is even slightly controversial.

Now you say, don't count Aion out. Ummm...4 Million subs in 2009, down to 3 Million subs in 2011.

This is in no way a response to what I wrote:

Just because they're decreasing, doesn't mean there is no effect. Absent Aion, some of those three million mostly Korean players might have chosen to say in WoW, or joined WoW. That's all competition, and it affects Blizzard's numbers

Indeed, what I wrote seems a pretty decent response to your response, so I'll just leave it.

You can try and massage the results however you like, but the over-riding situation here is this: WoW is losing subscriptions because of a change in how they do things. It can be seen with the start of Wrath, but stayed pretty constant once is dropped down, but right now, the situation is does not look to be following that with WoW by the way Blizzard is acting.

Either your ability to pick out causes from a complex mess of interacting factors is substantially better than mine, or you're just writing whatever causal story you prefer onto the data. What makes your story better than, say, Bolty's?

"Here, have 4 months of play time if you buy the CE of Diablo 3." "Have Diablo 3 free if you pay for a 1 year subscription to WoW." You start to see the point yet?

As I said elsewhere, Blizzard does not want to compete with themselves. Therefore, they package their games together, to try and soften the blow.

Next week will give us a picture of just how bad the situation is when ATVI releases 3 Quarter results.

Yes, no doubt it will be terrible for them, having the most successful MMO ever by a factor of merely 3.9, rather than 4. They should probably just fire the whole "B team" now, and be done with it. If they continue at this precipitous rate of decline, WoW will cease to exist by... 2023! And, by a mere 2019, it won't even have the most subscribers of any MMO ever. Disaster!

-Jester

Investors, though, seemed to focus on Activision's other big game, "World of Warcraft," as the company's stock fell after the results came out. That's because the game ended the quarter with 10.3 million active subscribers, down from 11.1 million from the previous quarter.

And, down another 800k subscribers to 10.3 Million. You still want to try blaming this on something other than the B team Jester? 1.7Million lost, 15% of their subscribers, in just 9 months since the launch of a new expansion. You don't lose 15% of your player base like that with no real competition in just 9 months unless you're doing something wrong and alienating people. Face it, the B team has screwed up and now Blizzard is paying for it.

[Jester]

And, down another 800k subscribers to 10.3 Million. You still want to try blaming this on something other than the B team Jester?

"They have lost more subscribers, therefore I am correct about why they lost subscribers." This is not a reasonable argument.

It seems to me to be a combination of factors, many of which have been mentioned already. Primary among them, as has been emphasized before, is boredom. Second, is the rise of alternative games, including Rift and Aion - no, they are not picking up subscribers at 1 to 1, but yes, they are offering alternatives to WoW, and are still both large competitors. Third, is the tuning of heroic instances to be less wafflestompy, perhaps alienating casuals who liked free purples. Fourth, if Blizzard is to be believed, there is a large decline of players in China whose causes I would have a hard time guessing at. Fifth, times are hard economically, the recession continues to bite not just in the US but worldwide. MMO subscriptions run out, and people cut back. Sixth, Blizzard has announced a highly anticipated online fantasy game directly in competition with itself. Seventh, the toughest competitor WoW has ever faced, The Old Republic, is launching very soon, and anyone anticipating a switch could (should) let their WoW account lapse.

None of those things involves a decline in quality from B Team design. One is a tactical miscalculation that actually seems to reflect good design, but leads to the depressing conclusion that people don't actually want good design, but rather, easy stomping.

I do not understand on what basis you dismiss all those potential factors.

1.7Million lost, 15% of their subscribers, in just 9 months since the launch of a new expansion. You don't lose 15% of your player base like that with no real competition in just 9 months unless you're doing something wrong and alienating people. Face it, the B team has screwed up and now Blizzard is paying for it.

9 months is like the sales lifespan of a normal game. Blizzard lost 500,000 subscribers in that span following the release of WotLK - expansions generate excitement, then that excitement falls off and peoples' subscriptions lapse. This one is rougher than in the past, and may get worse yet. But once again: this game is OLD. I am not playing any other games of that vintage.

WoW is still, even with these losses (not unprecedented, in ratio terms!), over three times as large as its nearest competitor, which you have already dismissed as a complete irrelevance.

From a social science perspective, the key issue here is that we have data, but no plausible counterfactual. How many subscribers would WoW have had absent any given factor X? (Age, competition, economy, design decisions, whatever) The truth is, we have no idea. We can look at the numbers go up sometimes, and say that means good decisions - but who's to say they wouldn't have gone up further, making them bad decisions? We can look at the numbers go down, and say that means bad decisions - but how do we know the numbers wouldn't have declined even more, due to other factors, but were kept higher by the "bad" decisions? This is not a trivial issue. It is tempting to just read whatever your pet explanation is into the data, as if every movement as an obvious, single, cause, creating the change at exactly the observed magnitude. But the odds of that being true are vanishingly small, for something this complex.

-Jester

[Treesh]

You don't lose 15% of your player base like that with no real competition in just 9 months unless you're doing something wrong and alienating people.

Who says the competition has to be another MMO? Just because they choose to play an MMO doesn't mean they exclude other genres. There have been some very highly anticipated games here recently that aren't MMOs - Skyrim, Call of Duty. Do you have the numbers for right around Fallout 3 release? I know a few folks who let subs run out when other games are getting close to release, even if they aren't the same genre. Of course, I also know a few who finally dropped WoW because of the Kung Fu Panda expansion. There are many possible reasons why people are leaving WoW, or temporarily so. Without getting data about the why you can't come to the conclusion that it's simply because of the B team. Get the data that Blizzard collects when you cancel the account and make the peons cry. That will help you more with the why than just pointing to numbers of subscribers lost.

[Lissa]

And, down another 800k subscribers to 10.3 Million. You still want to try blaming this on something other than the B team Jester?

"They have lost more subscribers, therefore I am correct about why they lost subscribers." This is not a reasonable argument.

It seems to me to be a combination of factors, many of which have been mentioned already. Primary among them, as has been emphasized before, is boredom.

15% in 9 months is boredom? Come on Jester, that's a bit too large a group to say boredom, especially when the losses are accelerating.

Second, is the rise of alternative games, including Rift and Aion - no, they are not picking up subscribers at 1 to 1, but yes, they are offering alternatives to WoW, and are still both large competitors.

Your delusions are showing. Aion is losing subscriptions, it's been losing them since 2009. WoW subscribers are not going to Aion, look at the data. Rifts got a short infusion when it lauched, going to 600k subscribers, but within 3 months they had last 25% of those and they are below that mark still. No game has picked up these subs in any relevance. The data is there if you bother to look, refusing to recognize what the data says shows you're deluding yourself.

Third, is the tuning of heroic instances to be less wafflestompy, perhaps alienating casuals who liked free purples.

Again, stop deluding yourself. Initially, those instances weren't, but they have been nerfed considerably. Do you recall what Setesh was like before the first nerf? It was the ultimate in DPS races in the heroic instances, now, it's pathetically easy, and that happened within the first quarter. The instances have been nerfed down quite a bit prior to these major drops.

Fourth, if Blizzard is to be believed, there is a large decline of players in China whose causes I would have a hard time guessing at.

Except the subs fluctuated between 11.5M and 12M between start of Wrath and start of Cataclysm while China was stuck with just tBC. China hasn't played that major a role.

Fifth, times are hard economically, the recession continues to bite not just in the US but worldwide. MMO subscriptions run out, and people cut back.

The only potential here of your reasoning, but gathering the various comments from people on line, not enough to account for this large a drop.

Sixth, Blizzard has announced a highly anticipated online fantasy game directly in competition with itself.

Announcing and being available are too different things. Diablo 3 is not out and thus Blizzard should not be losing subs due to this. If Diablo 3 was out, yes, you'd have a point, but it's not.

Seventh, the toughest competitor WoW has ever faced, The Old Republic, is launching very soon, and anyone anticipating a switch could (should) let their WoW account lapse.

Again, SW:TOR is not out. Likewise, you don't sit 3 to 6 months waiting for something to come out like this unless you're dissatisified with the game.

None of those things involves a decline in quality from B Team design. One is a tactical miscalculation that actually seems to reflect good design, but leads to the depressing conclusion that people don't actually want good design, but rather, easy stomping.

I do not understand on what basis you dismiss all those potential factors.

Because only the economic one has the potential to work with the data given. Every single excuse you gave goes not jive with the data we've seen. You don't lose this kind of subs with no real competition (and they don't have any real competition as yet, we're still 6 1/2 weeks out from SW:TOR and we're several months out from D3).

1.7Million lost, 15% of their subscribers, in just 9 months since the launch of a new expansion. You don't lose 15% of your player base like that with no real competition in just 9 months unless you're doing something wrong and alienating people. Face it, the B team has screwed up and now Blizzard is paying for it.

9 months is like the sales lifespan of a normal game. Blizzard lost 500,000 subscribers in that span following the release of WotLK - expansions generate excitement, then that excitement falls off and peoples' subscriptions lapse. This one is rougher than in the past, and may get worse yet. But once again: this game is OLD. I am not playing any other games of that vintage.

You're kidding right? 9 months is not the normal lifespan for a MMO. MMOs are not like an Single Person RPG like Mass Effect or Skyrim. MMOs are all about building a longevity of character over years of play not some 40 to 60 hours. MMOs are designed to be time sinks. They are ment to last for years at a time.

WoW is still, even with these losses (not unprecedented, in ratio terms!), over three times as large as its nearest competitor, which you have already dismissed as a complete irrelevance.

-Jester

I would admit it was relevant if it was gaining subscriptions, but Aion has been losing them for longer than WoW and has only existed for 4 years. Likewise, Rifts has only been around for 8 months, yet it is at almost half the subscriptions it initially started at with its launch. WoW has lost 15% of its subscriptions in less than a year with no real competition, it's not losing these people to other games in the MMO field. You do not lose 15% of your subscribers without a seriuos competitor like this unless you are screwing up.

[Jester]

15% in 9 months is boredom? Come on Jester, that's a bit too large a group to say boredom, especially when the losses are accelerating.

Why, exactly? Do you have some sort of boredom magnitude, against which to compare this? All I have are historical MMOs, and the evidence shows that when people start to leave, declines of a quarter or more in a year are very common.

Your delusions are showing. Aion is losing subscriptions, it's been losing them since 2009. WoW subscribers are not going to Aion, look at the data. Rifts got a short infusion when it lauched, going to 600k subscribers, but within 3 months they had last 25% of those and they are below that mark still. No game has picked up these subs in any relevance. The data is there if you bother to look, refusing to recognize what the data says shows you're deluding yourself.

As I've tried to explain to you several times, competitors matter even if they are also losing subscribers. They do not have to be gaining subscribers in order to be keeping WoW's numbers lower than they otherwise would be. If you are unable to understand how this works, then I have no further help for you.

Again, stop deluding yourself. Initially, those instances weren't, but they have been nerfed considerably. Do you recall what Setesh was like before the first nerf? It was the ultimate in DPS races in the heroic instances, now, it's pathetically easy, and that happened within the first quarter. The instances have been nerfed down quite a bit prior to these major drops.

World of Warcraft subscriptions do not lapse the instant you stop playing, and you don't stop playing the instant you get frustrated. People leaving the game takes time. Most players pay by the 3-6-12 month interval. You can't just reason from precise timing, as if that was ironclad proof.

Except the subs fluctuated between 11.5M and 12M between start of Wrath and start of Cataclysm while China was stuck with just tBC. China hasn't played that major a role.

I don't even understand how this is an explanation of anything. Regardless, Blizzard has stated that the majority of these new losses are in East Asia. What you are saying here is in direct contradiction to what they've said, and since we're already taking their word on subscriber numbers, we might as well accept that as well, no?

The only potential here of your reasoning, but gathering the various comments from people on line, not enough to account for this large a drop.

"I read some online comments, and asked my gut about the magnitude, and it told me nuh uh." Really? That's the argument? Really?

You use a lot of phrases like "not enough to account for". I would really like to know how you are determining this. I assume you're just trusting whatever your gut tells you, because I'm not seeing any other reasoning here.

Announcing and being available are too different things. Diablo 3 is not out and thus Blizzard should not be losing subs due to this. If Diablo 3 was out, yes, you'd have a point, but it's not.
...

Again, SW:TOR is not out. Likewise, you don't sit 3 to 6 months waiting for something to come out like this unless you're dissatisified with the game.

People anticipate. They ask themselves if they want to renew their subscriptions. If new and awesome games are right around the corner, maybe they decide not to renew. Maybe, as Treesh suggested, they'll fiddle with some non-MMO games for a few months. Skyrim. The TOR beta. Whatever. MMOs are a commitment to long-term play, and if you don't feel your commitment is going to matter in 3 months, maybe you stop playing today.

You're kidding right? 9 months is not the normal lifespan for a MMO. MMOs are not like an Single Person RPG like Mass Effect or Skyrim. MMOs are all about building a longevity of character over years of play not some 40 to 60 hours. MMOs are designed to be time sinks. They are ment to last for years at a time.

Yes. MMOs last for years. And WoW has lasted for SEVEN. That's biblically old, in computer game terms. That's longer than any competitor, ever. That's a longer successful run than any game, ever. People have played this game to DEATH. If you sum up my /played, it's like I played the stupid thing as a full time job for over a year. This game is no longer current generation. It's barely even the generation before that. It's OLD. But no, I guess in your gut feeling model, 12 million people are supposed to play it forever, unless something goes wrong? Apparently, or else you wouldn't make statements like...

You do not lose 15% of your subscribers without a seriuos competitor like this unless you are screwing up.

Could you tell me on which historical example you are basing these magnitudes? Or are you just going with your gut here?

-Jester

[Lissa]

15% in 9 months is boredom? Come on Jester, that's a bit too large a group to say boredom, especially when the losses are accelerating.

Why, exactly? Do you have some sort of boredom magnitude, against which to compare this? All I have are historical MMOs, and the evidence shows that when people start to leave, declines of a quarter or more in a year are very common.

If it was truly boredom, don't you think you would see something akin to what happened with Wrath? Go look at the graphs that were previously posted. The loses in subscritions during those time periods covered two years and account for only 5%.

Your delusions are showing. Aion is losing subscriptions, it's been losing them since 2009. WoW subscribers are not going to Aion, look at the data. Rifts got a short infusion when it lauched, going to 600k subscribers, but within 3 months they had last 25% of those and they are below that mark still. No game has picked up these subs in any relevance. The data is there if you bother to look, refusing to recognize what the data says shows you're deluding yourself.

As I've tried to explain to you several times, competitors matter even if they are also losing subscribers. They do not have to be gaining subscribers in order to be keeping WoW's numbers lower than they otherwise would be. If you are unable to understand how this works, then I have no further help for you.

Except, which you continue to delude yourself here, they're not dragging away the number of people seen lost. Aion has been losing subscriptions, not gaining them, so there's no way they're pulling a significant number of people away from WoW. Rifts launched, pulled in 600k people, probably a large number from WoW initially, but after the first month lost a fair percentage of those that decided to try it out back to WoW (take a look around at forum posts in other places besides here Jester).

Again, stop deluding yourself. Initially, those instances weren't, but they have been nerfed considerably. Do you recall what Setesh was like before the first nerf? It was the ultimate in DPS races in the heroic instances, now, it's pathetically easy, and that happened within the first quarter. The instances have been nerfed down quite a bit prior to these major drops.

World of Warcraft subscriptions do not lapse the instant you stop playing, and you don't stop playing the instant you get frustrated. People leaving the game takes time. Most players pay by the 3-6-12 month interval. You can't just reason from precise timing, as if that was ironclad proof.

The mode was 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months until very recently (yearly was introduced in the last two weeks). And people typically will lapse towards the end of their subscription, not towards the start.

Except the subs fluctuated between 11.5M and 12M between start of Wrath and start of Cataclysm while China was stuck with just tBC. China hasn't played that major a role.

I don't even understand how this is an explanation of anything. Regardless, Blizzard has stated that the majority of these new losses are in East Asia. What you are saying here is in direct contradiction to what they've said, and since we're already taking their word on subscriber numbers, we might as well accept that as well, no?

You don't get it do you? Even though China was on tBC until about 6 months from Cataclysm launch when Wrath finally launched in China and then Cataclysm launched there in July, yet there wasn't some exodus from there during such a long stretch of tBC. Somehow I don't buy Blizzard's excuse. Actually take a look at other forums and where people are from, Blizzard can say that it's the far east, but looking at commentary, it looks like they're losing similar amounts of subs across all areas the game is played.

The only potential here of your reasoning, but gathering the various comments from people on line, not enough to account for this large a drop.

"I read some online comments, and asked my gut about the magnitude, and it told me nuh uh." Really? That's the argument? Really?

You use a lot of phrases like "not enough to account for". I would really like to know how you are determining this. I assume you're just trusting whatever your gut tells you, because I'm not seeing any other reasoning here.

The data has been posted earlier Jester. It's there if you want to actually look at it. If you want to ignore it, fine, but your reasoning for why WoW has lost such a significant number of subscriptions does not fit what the data is showing.

Announcing and being available are too different things. Diablo 3 is not out and thus Blizzard should not be losing subs due to this. If Diablo 3 was out, yes, you'd have a point, but it's not.
...

Again, SW:TOR is not out. Likewise, you don't sit 3 to 6 months waiting for something to come out like this unless you're dissatisified with the game.

People anticipate. They ask themselves if they want to renew their subscriptions. If new and awesome games are right around the corner, maybe they decide not to renew. Maybe, as Treesh suggested, they'll fiddle with some non-MMO games for a few months. Skyrim. The TOR beta. Whatever. MMOs are a commitment to long-term play, and if you don't feel your commitment is going to matter in 3 months, maybe you stop playing today.

Again, you are totally missing how people stop their subs. They don't pay for the new time period, then immediately stop playing. If people follow that model, they're being idiots. People will play for most of the sub, atleast 50% through it, then stop the sub. You don't just stop playing a sub after paying for it.

You're kidding right? 9 months is not the normal lifespan for a MMO. MMOs are not like an Single Person RPG like Mass Effect or Skyrim. MMOs are all about building a longevity of character over years of play not some 40 to 60 hours. MMOs are designed to be time sinks. They are ment to last for years at a time.

Yes. MMOs last for years. And WoW has lasted for SEVEN. That's biblically old, in computer game terms. That's longer than any competitor, ever. That's a longer successful run than any game, ever. People have played this game to DEATH. If you sum up my /played, it's like I played the stupid thing as a full time job for over a year. This game is no longer current generation. It's barely even the generation before that. It's OLD. But no, I guess in your gut feeling model, 12 million people are supposed to play it forever, unless something goes wrong? Apparently, or else you wouldn't make statements like...

No, 12 million people aren't s'posed to play it forever, but likewise, you don't lose 15% of your subscribers in 9 months when there's no real competition against you either while retaining a very large subscriber base up to that point without doing something wrong. I would expect to see WoW lose 25% or more once SW:TOR and/or D3 had actually came out, not 15% 9 months after the release of a new expansion when subscrptions were staying pretty steady up to that.

You do not lose 15% of your subscribers without a seriuos competitor like this unless you are screwing up.

Could you tell me on which historical example you are basing these magnitudes? Or are you just going with your gut here?

-Jester

Take a look at the subscriptions of SWG after some of their later expansions. The expansions that were unpopular show a definite decline due to the actions of SoE. Now, go back and look at the subscriptions of games like EQ when WoW launched (actual competition). Notice the differences between the subscriber loses in the two models. What we've seen with WoW is akin to SWG, bad decisions by the developers led to people leaving. WoW is not seriously competing with anyone right now and they're facing loses similar to what SWG did in it's unpopular expansions.

The data is in front of you Jester, you can ignore it or you can actually pay attention and realize that the B team has screwed things up.

[Chesspiece_face]

Could you tell me on which historical example you are basing these magnitudes? Or are you just going with your gut here?

-Jester

Take a look at the subscriptions of SWG after some of their later expansions. The expansions that were unpopular show a definite decline due to the actions of SoE. Now, go back and look at the subscriptions of games like EQ when WoW launched (actual competition). Notice the differences between the subscriber loses in the two models. What we've seen with WoW is akin to SWG, bad decisions by the developers led to people leaving. WoW is not seriously competing with anyone right now and they're facing loses similar to what SWG did in it's unpopular expansions.

The data is in front of you Jester, you can ignore it or you can actually pay attention and realize that the B team has screwed things up.

You're seriously equating design decisions that WoW has done over the last two years with the decisions of SWG that essentially erased the characters and everything their subscription base had created and worked for in one fell swoop? First of all when SWG revamped their whole character system the game DIED. It didn't lose 5%, 10%, or 15% of their subscriptions. It DIED. They had to refund the money of anyone that purchased the last expansion.

When Blizzard is forced to refund their entire subscription base's purchase of an expansion because they nerfed content too soon come back and talk.

[vor_lord]

Seriously, this isn't dead yet?

Claiming Jester is ignoring the data is stupid. There's been plenty of evidence that shows he's seen it.

Vehemently repeating one's unsupported statements doesn't make them more convincing. Neither does ranting repeatedly about someone else's delusions.

Seriously, give it a rest.

[NuurAbSaal]

Seriously, this isn't dead yet?

Claiming Jester is ignoring the data is stupid. There's been plenty of evidence that shows he's seen it.

Vehemently repeating one's unsupported statements doesn't make them more convincing. Neither does ranting repeatedly about someone else's delusions.

Seriously, give it a rest.

x2

take care
Tarabulus

[Roland]

Frankly, I'm just amazed it hasn't veered off into politics by now (which would then spawn a whole new thread - "to keep the discussion from being too derailed.")



I haven't played WoW since the first year. Saw the writing on the wall then, and knew it wasn't for me. Haven't regretted it since. What drew me into WoW was the Warcraft lore, and what drove me away was the pinatas and treadmills. The lore is dead, as far as I'm concerned (and yes, this whole Pandaren thing is a joke taken too far, but if it sells who am I to argue?), and the gameplay doesn't do nearly enough to lure me back in on its own. However, I've no doubt MoP will be a more successful expansion than Cataclysm was, and will sell plenty. Personally, I intend to lose myself in Skyrim or die trying (be the first title in the series that actually might grab me and HOLD me - and it comes out on my birthday, to boot!), and await Torchlight II and Diablo III. At least I've been forcing myself to go though my HUGE backlog of games I have on Steam (338 total and counting!), which has led to some very enjoyable gameplay that I would have otherwise missed if I was invested in a (real) MMO.

[Jester]

Frankly, I'm just amazed it hasn't veered off into politics by now (which would then spawn a whole new thread - "to keep the discussion from being too derailed.")

I don't start with the politics. I just finish it.

-Jester