Is WoW on its way out?

Tombstone said:
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.
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To be honest apart from WoW and GW2, there hasn't been any decent MMO's in a few years. Maybe the market for that type of game is dying
 
It's doing badly right now (in relative terms, it's still #1 by a massive margin, FFXIV would love to be doing as "bad" lol) because it's just had it's worst expansion in history (Warlords of Draenor), Blizzard put very little work into it and also changed removed things that didn't need changing or removing, simply put every single design decision that went into WoD was the wrong one and the game and subscriber count suffered heavily as a result.

It looks like in the next expansion lots of those problems have been fixed and the game will bounce back to higher sustained subscription levels.
 
I moved from Lineage 2 to WoW when it first came out, i was amazed at how much quicker i lvled. I went back to Lineage though as the PVP in that game was simply the best i have experienced in an MMO, and i loved the castle sieges!
 
WoW is certianly still alive but its by no means thriving like it used to be. Its subs have been slowly getting lower year by year with only new expansions bringing some subs back with later to have subs decrease again. Blizz have no problem bringing out new expansions if it keeps a signifcant amount of people subbed, there still raking it in. But i know what you mean by on its way out! It will do soon enough but that time will only come when the next decent MMO comes along!
 
I think Blizzard are doing their best to slowly kill the game. There is little explanation for many of the decisions made.
 
It's been dead to me for years. I briefly went back to the game when Mists Of Pandaria came out to see if they had perhaps breathed new life into it. What I got was a simplified, badly streamlined, and half-hearted attempt at keeping WoW appealing to a larger crowd.

Everything that made the game interesting was gone. It was good to start with, Burning Crusade was alright and Lich King was just about passable. After that...nah.

It's not just WoW though to be fair. I'm done with MMO's altogether. I don't want to sound like a miserable sod but I like the single player experience, the immersion and a good story. MMO's require way too much time and commitment offering very little back in return in my opinion.
 
when i see reports of WoW losing subs and being at its lowest for a long time, i just think thats probably still much higher than most other MMOs out there, things got legs for sure
 
I've had an active subscription to WoW pretty much since it was released, and I'd say that the last 6 months or so have been the hardest time Blizzard have had since release.

Most of the active subscribers consider the most recent expansion to be a bit of a dud, particularly with the last of post-expansion content.

I think the decline in subscriber is just a reflection of the general age of game, but I suspect that unless the next expansion is something really special then WoW will really start to struggle.
 
Jolteh said:
I've had an active subscription to WoW pretty much since it was released, and I'd say that the last 6 months or so have been the hardest time Blizzard have had since release.

Most of the active subscribers consider the most recent expansion to be a bit of a dud, particularly with the last of post-expansion content.

I think the decline in subscriber is just a reflection of the general age of game, but I suspect that unless the next expansion is something really special then WoW will really start to struggle.
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It should be great, it's what most people wanted right from the get go and release of TBC. Playable demon hunters!
 
I really hope they ditch the subscription fee or reduce it greatly. I know it won't happen for a very long time but it'd be perfect for players like me who dip in and out of the game for a couple of weeks every six months. If they did that I'd happily spend money in their store and pay for character transfers and the odd race change.
 
Played vanilla like it was the only thing to live for, and then a lot of TBC. Have had a few stints since probably a month here or there, but it's not as exciting as vanilla once was. As already said it's very easy and requires no commitment of time to get good gear and achieve something. I completely understand why blizzard have made the game this way.
 
It's the focus on end game which put me off MMOs. In th early days for Everquest you had no choice but to take your time to level, hell, if you wanted to go somewhere else you generally had to run, an often dangerous journey which could generate a fair amount of XP in itself.

These days MMos seem to be about getting to max level ASSAP by passing as much content as possible and then rinse repeat the same few "raids" over and over again ad naseum. I don't get it, why would you not want to enjoy the story and variety of locations and experiences rather run from quest to quest as quickly as possible usually not even reading the quest beyond the requirements...
 
No loss really, i've seen really good friendships and marriages fall apart because of this game, all because someone wants to have more twigs and clay pots than anyone else.
 
Macro said:
It's the focus on end game which put me off MMOs. In th early days for Everquest you had no choice but to take your time to level, hell, if you wanted to go somewhere else you generally had to run, an often dangerous journey which could generate a fair amount of XP in itself.

These days MMos seem to be about getting to max level ASSAP by passing as much content as possible and then rinse repeat the same few "raids" over and over again ad naseum. I don't get it, why would you not want to enjoy the story and variety of locations and experiences rather run from quest to quest as quickly as possible usually not even reading the quest beyond the requirements...
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I level at my own pace (slowly) reading all the text and taking everything in. I'll then do a bit of end game raiding but once I'm done I'll un-sub and wait until the next expansion or until a decent patch. I much prefer the levelling experience than the end game one.
 
WoW has nothing new added to it. The core game is very stale and they can only dress it up by raising the level cap. The sub numbers have obviously peaked a long time ago but the game will have a few more expansions in it yet.
 
For all the negatives listed in this thread, it's still the one game I've played in the last 10-15 years that has kept me coming back.

I played Vanilla at launch for a few months but then moved on to other things. I was lured back during WotLK by my brother-in-law and played obsessively from then on - with a slight break for Diablo 3 - right through to Timeless Isle in Mists of Pandaria. At that point, the grind and the rudeness/lack of tolerance in instance PUGs was really getting to me and I unsubbed.

I've since dabbled with Elite Dangerous (brilliant game, but even more grindy than WoW IMHO), Elder Scrolls Online and GW2, but again have found myself lured back to Warlords (brother in law again) and currently I'm really enjoying it and wondering why I ever stopped.

I've boosted two toons to 90 - a brand new rogue started at level 1 (using the 'free' boost that came with WoD) and a warlock that was around 78-79, but that will be my lot, as it gives me a hunter at 100 and rogue & warlock in the early to mid 90's, covering my three favourite classes. No intention to level any classes other than those - there's also a 'loomed-up paladin at around level 30, but he's very much on the back burner.

I'm sure staleness will set in again at some stage, but for now at least, I'm having a lot of fun - which is why I play games, after all. Like it or not, WoW is the only game that has persistently, albeit in fits and starts, provided me with that over its lifespan.
 
MooMoo444 said:
WoW has nothing new added to it. The core game is very stale and they can only dress it up by raising the level cap. The sub numbers have obviously peaked a long time ago but the game will have a few more expansions in it yet.
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I think MMOs have lost touch with the roots of RPG gaming.

What happened in the pen and paper days? You'd start a campaign/scenario with fresh chars, and would play to the end. Then you'd start a new campaign with new chars.

In today's MMOs, designers have become obsessed with making each campaign a continuation of the last. Thus they have to increase levels, etc, to the piont of sheer broken-ness.

And the only way to reset is to launch a new game. How silly is that?

Why not go back to the roots of RPG gaming. Release a new expansion where you can't just bring your max_level char, but have to start again.

The reason people want to rush through low level content when they re-roll is simple:

a) the perception, rightly or wrongly, that low-level content is boring or lacks challenge (lack of abilities, etc).
b) the story only really kicking in at high-level, or when raiding
c) lack of early game content - in WoW each new character would have to do the same areas again and again.

This is again different from pen and paper. The challenge can and does start from the beginning, and so does the story.

There is /no/ reason that the low-level game should be filler, or a big tutorial, or a stepping stone to the real content. Only the expectations of players and lack of developer imagination dictates this.
 
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