Is WoW on its way out?

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Soldato
Joined
10 May 2004
Posts
12,981
Location
Sunny Stafford
This article said that subscription figures have fallen back to Vanilla levels - 5.6 million. It's still an impressive figure for an MMO though, and has remained unbeaten during its 10-year run.

I played 2005-9, so Vanilla and TBC. Then I had a 3-month "relapse" last year. I liked the Chinese themeing for Mists, but it wasn't the same game any more. Too easy - was full epic after 2 days, and got to ilvl 542 without touching a single dungeon. I PUGged a few world bosses and e.g. frogs on Timeless Isle, but it's now a younger crowd than in Vanilla, so lots of attitude and ninja looting. Then Warlords made the game inaccessible due to 4200+ server queues despite earlier expansions having reasonable queues (same server).

Where/when did it go wrong?

On the plus side, I have great memories playing the game during Vanilla, was in a BWL guild, met several guildies IRL who I still meet up with to this very day. So I have gained friends in the game who I still see now even though none of us play WoW any more. Also loved South Park's "Make Love, Not Warcraft" which was also from Vanilla :-)
 
People have been saying WoW is dying for... well, since about release +1 year?

Having played MMOs /before/ WoW I've never really understood what the fuss was about. Sure it's Blizzard, and highly polished, but it couldn't hold a candle to some of its predecessors.

It was very dumbed down, even in vanilla. Not sure how it could get worse :p Chat was terrible from day zero.

And WoW was /always/ easy, compared to other MMOs. Hell, while soloing in WoW you actually felt over-powered most of the time. Other MMOs punished soloers by making it extremely difficult to go alone (or very, very slow going).
 
Gaming is changing - It has moved a long way since Warcraft launch I doubt we will ever see a return to its peak in any MMO (game) ever again. That said I think we are still a long way from it being 'out' as said above we have seen this discussion come and go so many times over the years.
 
5.6m subscribers at £10 a month, name any other game that is making that kind of money? even if subscribers drop to under a milion it'll surely still be a good cash cow to milk? if population drops that drastically they'll probably just merge realms completely, so you won't have as many empty servers.
 
Last edited:
Granted, WoW is an easier alternative to Everquest, but what I meant is the difference between achieving full epic during Vanilla and achieving full epic during Mists. In Vanilla, it took me 5 months to level 1-60. Then I joined a social guild that raided 3 nights a week. No previous raiding experience - we did everything from the ground up. Another 5 months later, we were all in tier 2. 2006 was a great year in my WoW career because it took some degree of effort while keeping it fun. Going back to WoW briefly in 2014 wasn't the same as I was able to solo/PUG my way to ilvl 542 relatively quickly.
 
A friend and I tried WoW once and we made it out of the starting area only for some random guy to run upto my friend and type "**** shoes, are you poor or something?" then run off. He uninstalled a few hours later and so did I.
 
A boring as **** genre with a boring as **** game at the helm.


I honestly don't get it, id place hearthstone above WoW, for being mildly more entertaining and thats a Pay-to-win extravaganza.

Gaming isnt what it used to be and i honestly don't care, its not my money they're wasting.
 
HybridX said:
A friend and I tried WoW once and we made it out of the starting area only for some random guy to run upto my friend and type "**** shoes, are you poor or something?" then run off. He uninstalled a few hours later and so did I.
Click to expand...

MMOs weren't like this back in 2000. Back when it was niche market, the community was much tighter knit, reputations meant a lot.

It's not WoW's fault, but since they exploded the popularity of the genre, they've brought in the unwashed masses, the children who aren't even old enough to pay for their own sub, and asshats in general.
 
It will die eventually but 5.6 million customers paying the sub and a good few probably spunking money on level boosts and vanity ****?

I don't play it anymore but it isn't going anywhere soon.
 
I played vanilla from the get-go and loved it, but I do think people look back at vanilla with rose-tinted glasses. In many areas it was a massive, boring grind. I remember being in BRD groups for whole days and still not seeing the end boss. That just isn't fun. The rep-grinds were simply huge time-sinks. Some classes were ridiculously overpowered in PvP, almost bizarrely so.

The things I miss from vanilla are many, though: I miss the jaw-drop-moments when you enter big, scary raids like Molten Core for the first time. I miss being genuinely proud of myself as I sat on my epic kodo mount in Orgrimmar (back then getting the 1,000 gold needed was seriously tough and I would get so many whispers about it). I miss the random PvP at the Crossroads because that felt like a real-life raid by the Alliance dogs.

I miss the lower subscription fee. ;)
 
Well speaking of it I joined vanilla server few days ago and I have to say that community is second to none. Game itself is of course the same infuriating mixed bag particularly leveling a warrior. Things are a lot harder and gameplay really does push people together, with garrisons in WoD it feels like inception as you already being "anti social" by playing the game and anti social within the game as there's very little need to play with others.
 
Briefly played it but could never get on with it. Whilst the numbers have been going down for years, the content they provide will keep the core player base going on for a while yet. Some serious cash they are making though!
 
I think even if numbers dropped to 500k subscribers it would still be kept alive by Blizzard...

For better or worse, the world has moved on since WoW seemed like 'the next big thing' (which it was)... It has done it's best to adapt to a more modern world but that type of game is really from a bygone era.
 
I dont think its just WoW in particular, it seems to me that in the last 12 months or so the entire MMO genre has diminished. As a genre it seems to be suffering. Perhaps the MMO generation has moved on from the genre or perhaps its just that after almost 20 years the formula has been worn out.
 
I really don't like wow for an assortment of reasons but to me it does provide the useful function of being a $%(£ magnet, which keeps the numbers of $£"*'s down in the mmo I do play, to a tolerable level.

As people have already noted though, it's in every game and will probably get even worse.

"We blame society, but we are society"
 
I loved it whilst I was new to the genre, WoW was my first big MMO as the only other game of this type was Runescape.


That was the video I watched to persuade my parents to buy the sub for me haha :D

Was around Cata time that I started getting bored as I'd seen everything I wanted to. I go back for each expansion just to try it but get disappointed each time as it can never truly return to the point where I was brand new to it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom