WoW revenue down 54% in seven months

[railven]

You didn't need to "catch up". The gear discrepancy among tiers that exists now did not exist then - you could happily get BWL level gear and be 100% utterly fine back then. Now? If you're 1 tier behind, your character is rather useless. That was NOT the case back then, the item level differences between tiers didn't render prior tier gear to be terrible. You were still competitive in BWL level gear even AFTER naxxramas was patched in.

How would you farm BWL in the first place? If most guilds are in AQ40 or Naxx40, how would you get your foot in the door.

And if you were in BWL gear you were a liability in Naxx40. The same level of liability wearing Tier 14 in a Tier 16 raid.

That's the key difference from back then, and that is why no catchup was needed. Everyone was happy regardless of their progression.

Sure, everyone was happy - so happy Blizzard split raid sizes. So happy Blizzard changed steps to progress through raiding.

If people were "so happy" the system wouldn't have changed.

Besides which, Naxxramas had "gateway" bosses that were very easy despite the instance as a whole being very difficult. Nearly every BWL guild could kill 3-4 Naxx bosses.

And before you even got there, you still had to gear up for BWL progression. If you didn't belong to a sizeable guild, how would you catch up?

So let me know, if my friend bought WoW March 2006, how would he catch up to me without me roping a bunch of guildies into something chances are they had no interest in doing. Just curious.

 

[Chiropteran]

Do you still play WoW? Have you used the MoP LFR?

No, Yes, and I think that is key. It's kind of like the Matrix. You are still trapped inside the treadmill, so you will fight to defend it with all you can. You won't realize you are trapped until after you have been freed.

 

[Chiropteran]

If people were "so happy" the system wouldn't have changed.

Back in vanilla & BC, people complained on the forums, but continued playing and paying a monthly fee. They may have been a vocal minority complaining, but the subscription numbers didn't support the idea that a lot of people were unhappy, not at all.

Currently, however, the subscription data says players are cancelling in droves.

Read that as you will.

So let me know, if my friend bought WoW March 2006, how would he catch up to me without me roping a bunch of guildies into something chances are they had no interest in doing. Just curious.

Well, first of all your friend would be a level 1 character. Finding a guild to raid with is the least of his problems, he is going to need to spend first 2-3 months of play simply leveling up and learning the game. This is what I don't understand, you act like getting into the first raids is so impossibly hard and needs a mechanic to allow skipping them, but you ignore all the other time sinks and wastes of time that can't be so easily skipped.

 

[Veliko]

Back in vanilla & BC, people complained on the forums, but continued playing and paying a monthly fee. They may have been a vocal minority complaining

This, of course, completely contradicts all the earlier claims made about "everyone" having a sense of entitlement because "everyone" wanted to see "all" the content.

but the subscription numbers didn't support the idea that a lot of people were unhappy, not at all.

Currently, however, the subscription data says players are cancelling in droves.

Read that as you will.

I'd read it as you taking two and two to make five.

Well, first of all your friend would be a level 1 character. Finding a guild to raid with is the least of his problems, he is going to need to spend first 2-3 months of play simply leveling up and learning the game. This is what I don't understand, you act like getting into the first raids is so impossibly hard and needs a mechanic to allow skipping them, but you ignore all the other time sinks and wastes of time that can't be so easily skipped.

Try actually addressing his point rather than being deliberately obtuse.

 

[railven]

No, Yes, and I think that is key. It's kind of like the Matrix. You are still trapped inside the treadmill, so you will fight to defend it with all you can. You won't realize you are trapped until after you have been freed.

And now I'm defending WoW...I thought I was just defending my opinion of their new system. And defending myself from your accusations that I don't remember Vanilla.

WoW can shut down, trust me I won't care. I got plenty of things to do that don't involve WoW. But, you probably won't believe me...so not sure why I even state that.

Back in vanilla & BC, people complained on the forums, but continued playing and paying a monthly fee. They may have been a vocal minority complaining, but the subscription numbers didn't support the idea that a lot of people were unhappy, not at all.

Currently, however, the subscription data says players are cancelling in droves.

Read that as you will.

So basically a game that is almost a third of my life is losing subs because of game changes, NOT because of age? And sub numbers are still greater than Vanilla/TBC days? Hmmm...

My guild is 99% Vanilla players. Everyone else, doesn't concern me.

EDIT: To your edit:

Well, first of all your friend would be a level 1 character. Finding a guild to raid with is the least of his problems, he is going to need to spend first 2-3 months of play simply leveling up and learning the game. This is what I don't understand, you act like getting into the first raids is so impossibly hard and needs a mechanic to allow skipping them, but you ignore all the other time sinks and wastes of time that can't be so easily skipped.

This is where you keep missing what I'm saying. You can still do it old fashion way if that is truly your intent, with new WoW there is nothing holding you back from going through the ropes, the only thing is it is beyond inefficient and you will be stuck playing "catch up."

2-3 months for a level 60 in March 2006? Ummm...no. Maybe if you're playing 2-3 hours a week. If your intention is raiding, and you sit on your hands for 2-3 months, you deserve to be left behind. (It shows you don't have commitment.)

But using your claim:
Old WoW:
Level 1 - to current end game > fair to say 5-6 months, assuming the stars align and he can guild hop as they progress through content?
New WoW:
Level 1 - to current end game > fair to say <1 month

And yet you still think Old way is better just because you had to do it and thus everyone has to do it?

I'll take new WoW, in Old WoW my IRL best friend decides to finally try out WoW only to be turned down by most progressive raiding guilds (mine included) because of lack of gear (not even skill, just gear.)

Better yet, my friend who was in medical school join during middle of WOTLK. Oh how nice it was to catch up to us in under a month so he could join us for raiding during his limited schedule. Poor guy had no chance in Vanilla, but like most of us real life comes before a game.

 

[Tweak155]

The only thing I was really bitter about as far as making catch-up easier was the change in costs to riding & dual spec.

I paid a few thousand for flying and now its pennies! Back then a few thousand was a lot harder to earn too... it was like a double whammy!

Railven - what server & faction do you play on? Thinking about picking the game back up.

 

[Aikouka]

The gear discrepancy wasn't as big then as it is now - the difference in gear now between tiers renders older tiers useless. That was NOT the case in vanilla, 1 tier old gear was still useful. Heck, the healing trinket and helm (caster) from Nefarion were some of the best drops in the game for a long time even post naxx.

Honestly, I think that's a product of how downright terrible most of the vanilla gear was. Gear tended to have stats associated with your class's basic role versus what stats that class was designed to use. For example, strength is a basic melee DPS stat, and Rogue gear had it; however, a Rogue's main stat was agility. A poor stat prioritization could make a newer tier worse or pretty much equal to an older one.

 

[smackababy]

Honestly, I think that's a product of how downright terrible most of the vanilla gear was. Gear tended to have stats associated with your class's basic role versus what stats that class was designed to use. For example, strength is a basic melee DPS stat, and Rogue gear had it; however, a Rogue's main stat was agility. A poor stat prioritization could make a newer tier worse or pretty much equal to an older one.

If I remember correctly, the itemization in Vanilla was awful. Warriors would be rolling on rogue gear because of that specific reason.

 

[Anubis]

If I remember correctly, the itemization in Vanilla was awful. Warriors would be rolling on rogue gear because of that specific reason.

everything is a hunter weapon!

also the reason warriors rolled on leather was because nearly all plate was tank stats

 

[Anteaus]

I'm going to shift directions here. I don't much raiding experience so I'm not going to comment on that. What I will say for myself is that in spite of my love of the game, as a regular, no raiding player there are four specific things that Blizzard did that I think hurt the game for everyone in general.

1. Flying mounts. I think they are great in specific cases and I was an early fan of them, but in hidesight all people do now (exception being if you can't fly in panda yet), is grab a quest, fly up and over to exactly where the game tells you to go, do quest content, then fly up and over back to quest giver, completely bypassing all the content in between. I can understand how people think leveling is dull now when all you do is quickly burn through quests without actually paying attention to anything. I've since forced myself to use only ground mounts unless a quest specifically requires it and I find myself enjoying everything 10X as much because suddenly I'm focusing more on everything around me ..avoiding mobs, etc. Sure it takes longer to get places, but the world feels much more alive than screaming along the tree tops. Oh, and btw it just makes PVP all the more annoying. I should know, dropping from the sky and one shotting lowbies and then taking off again used to be my thing. Besides, it's far more fun when they see you coming at ground level....you can smell the fear of certain death.

2. New race locked storylines. Sure the new low level race zones and stories are great, but part of what made early wow fun was creating that level 1 night elf, taking the boat to the wetlands and dying to crocs on my struggle to get to ironforge in order to take the train down to Stormwind just so I can level in human land, just to have to run all the way back to get to a trainer. By requiring every person who creates a new Goblin, DK, Worgen, or Panda to be subjected to the overly long locked, phased story line just to join the rest of the world is stupid. I want to diversify. Yes, I would love to have a worgen as my (insert class here), but I've already slugged through it once and I'm not doing it again. Creating new alts used to be fun, but now there some dread depending on your race choice.

3. Deathknights. Were an amazing idea as a hero class that required at least one max level with storyline to get. Less of an idea when you just had to be max level. Stupider when it dropped to one 55 per server. Even stupider when it was one 55 total. Did I mention that people actually use it as a first character on new servers just as a cash grab to get started with their "real" characters. Deathknights suck. Oh, and their sound effects are the most annoying in game.

4. Phasing. Ok Blizzard, like 3D, phasing is a cool gimic to tell a story. It did great things in WOTLK. I have great memories of some of those story lines. You know what, after that you should have just left it alone. Phased levels suck. When I travel across the map to the flight path icon expecting...you know...a flight path....I shouldn't see an empty hole. It's perfectly enough just to have the quest guy ignore me until I complete the earlier threads.

5. Bonus - Loved cataclysm...loved much of what you did. Bring back the original Darkshore though. Some of the most memorable quests were there. I know it's gone forever, but I thought I would ask.

Long story short I still love wow. I think you all have great points on where it has stumbled and where it stood tall. It's easy to hate it but we should all remember that hundreds and thousands of hours some of us have put in since 2004 and that the spirit is still there. On a dollar/time spent ratio I'm sure even the most critical nonplayers today got far more than their money's worth when they were in the thick of it.

A friend of mine quit awhile back and he always feels the need to defend his decision to quit anytime the game comes up. I don't understand why people do that.

 

[Chiropteran]

If I remember correctly, the itemization in Vanilla was awful. Warriors would be rolling on rogue gear because of that specific reason.

I loved it. It was actually shocking (in a good way) to find a plate item with crit on it, for example. It was a lot of fun because often each item was inherently different. In recent wow, it just feels like "okay here is the ilvl 360 str/stam/crit/hit item, here is the ilvl 370 version of the same thing, oh and here is the ilvl 380 one that has mastery instead of crit" Bleh, boring as hell.

 

[AViking]

everything is a hunter weapon!

also the reason warriors rolled on leather was because nearly all plate was tank stats

Ugh huntards. I tried to repress that. Fucking idiots.

The problem with warriors was that they would pick up the leather gear and then switch to tanking. Rogues hates warriors for this. If you were a warrior who stayed DPS then all was good in the world.

 

[AViking]

Flying mounts weren't such a huge problem when they cost 5000 gold or whatever it originally was. I thought there was something relatively epic about running around for 40 levels, saving up the 600 gold or whatever it was for a mount, and then ultimately in BC saving up the 5000 gold to fly. With gold inflation and everything being given away for free though the problem you described happened. I think I left a little less than 300,000 in gold on my main character when I quit.

I still remember saving up my first silver. My first gold. My first 100 gold. I doubt new players have to deal with that. Shit with my alts I'd just mail them 10,000 gold right away so I screwed the pooch there too.

 

[BoberFett]

Ugh huntards. I tried to repress that. Fucking idiots.

You're just jealous. :awe:

My main was a hunter back in the day, I wish I could revive the character. I can remember very vividly the pains it took to earn RhokDelar. And trust me, when I use the word earn, I choose it very carefully. That was a truly epic quest line.

 

[Joeydubbs]

everything is a hunter weapon!

also the reason warriors rolled on leather was because nearly all plate was tank stats

Back in Vanilla, when grouping for dungeons you could predict with near perfection your chances for success based on how many NE hunters were in your group

Chance for successful dungeon clear was inversely proportional to the number of NE hunters in the group!

 

[mwestep]

I still remember saving up my first silver. My first gold. My first 100 gold. I doubt new players have to deal with that. Shit with my alts I'd just mail them 10,000 gold right away so I screwed the pooch there too.

I did the same thing when I first started playing back in vanilla. It was my first MMORPG I played, and had no idea what I was doing. I have a Night Elf Rogue, and was killing mobs by the lake. 2 copper dropped, I was psyched. I was thinking in my head that I needed to keep killing these guys to get a few silver so I can buy new gear.

Later on, I read about the auction house someplace, and the trip to IF was epic.

 

[surfsatwerk]

You're just jealous. :awe:

My main was a hunter back in the day, I wish I could revive the character. I can remember very vividly the pains it took to earn RhokDelar. And trust me, when I use the word earn, I choose it very carefully. That was a truly epic quest line.

It comforts me to know that somewhere out there in the ether Hawtbabe waits for my return, with Rhok in hand and Tigerlol by his side.

 

[ewdotson]

De gustibus on this, but I think that it was a fairly strong net negative when they made the dungeon finder go cross-realm. Now, I understand why they did it. Noone enjoys long queue times, and I've groused about how miserable it is to log on and wind up NOT playing the game because you can't get a group. That's why I'm a strong advocate of there being at least *some* sort of LFG tool and feel no nostalgia for the days of sitting in Ironforge and spamming general chat.

But before it went cross-realm, I ran into the same people often enough to recognize them and start to get to know some of the people. There was still a sense of community. Once it went cross-realm though? You'd see people once and that would be it. The game became far more lonely outside of your guild. And as much as people like to focus on gear, I find that it's the community that makes or breaks a game like this.

 

[Anubis]

You're just jealous. :awe:

My main was a hunter back in the day, I wish I could revive the character. I can remember very vividly the pains it took to earn RhokDelar. And trust me, when I use the word earn, I choose it very carefully. That was a truly epic quest line.

best thing about it was it was never supposed to make it into the game. same with the priest one. someone goofed. and they let them stay. Kinda why we never got ones for other classes

 

[smackababy]

Ugh huntards. I tried to repress that. Fucking idiots.

The problem with warriors was that they would pick up the leather gear and then switch to tanking. Rogues hates warriors for this. If you were a warrior who stayed DPS then all was good in the world.

As a rogue before WotLK, I feel your pain. Huntards always stealing my leather loot and being able to solo elites 3-4 levels higher than them when leveling...

Once WotLK came out though, I switched over to the dark side. I loved my hunter. I wouldn't play any other class. (except they removed armor pen and I thought that was stupid!) A panda hunter might not be best race / class (I'd imagine in Cata it was troll rather than orc due to hunters actually using haste effectively, but after that I've no idea what is best).

 

[Chiropteran]

2-3 months for a level 60 in March 2006? Ummm...no. Maybe if you're playing 2-3 hours a week. If your intention is raiding, and you sit on your hands for 2-3 months, you deserve to be left behind. (It shows you don't have commitment.)

Uh your friend is new to the game, is he not? Most new players took 2-3 months to hit max, if not longer. The really hardcore guys who leveled to 60 asap weren't joining the game after BWL, they were in it from release.

Of course, if your friend is actually one of those few super-dedicated 5 hours a night levelers who already knows everything about WoW, you could just take him into BWL. While I wasn't a fan of the 40 man raid size overall, one nice thing is that the impact of a single raider is so insignificant that you can easily carry one player who is under-geared for everything on farm.

I'm not really sure what your complaint is.

But using your claim:
Old WoW:
Level 1 - to current end game > fair to say 5-6 months, assuming the stars align and he can guild hop as they progress through content?
New WoW:
Level 1 - to current end game > fair to say <1 month

There is a reason for that. "Old WoW" endgame after leveling involves running raid after raid to get geared up and progress through item progression. It might take 5-6 months as you think, but during those months you gear up in ZG, AQ20, Onyxia, MC, BWL, potentially world bosses, AQ40, and then Naxx. You spend a lot of time because you are seeing a ton of content and it's all unique.


In new wow, after levleing your endgame consists of farming some badge items or crafted items to get needed ilvl, doing LFR for the current raid, doing normal mode for the current raid, and then doing heroic mode for the current raid. Woohoo, you can finish it in a month, but what have you done in that month? The same damn raid with the numbers tweaked a few new mechanics introduced, boring as hell if you ask me.

So yes. Doing a different raid every month and progressing gradually is more satisfying to me than doing one raid over and over and over again at varying difficulty levels.

And yet you still think Old way is better

And you seem to think that it really makes sense for Blizzard to spend valuable time designing and balance raids that expire and become completely pointless 6 months later.

 

[Aikouka]

best thing about it was it was never supposed to make it into the game. same with the priest one. someone goofed. and they let them stay. Kinda why we never got ones for other classes

I really enjoyed doing the priest quest back in the day. It was arguably easier than the hunter quest, but that final task to save the fleeing Stratholme citizens was quite a pain. I had to use just about every trick in the book including immolation potions to kill adds.

Didn't some of the demons on the hunter quest fear you? I rolled a dwarf priest long before they were sought after, and it wasn't uncommon to have people come and ask me for a fear ward -- especially when it lasted for 10 minutes and didn't dissipate upon being feared. Man, BGs were awesome with that on. :awe:

EDIT:

Uh your friend is new to the game, is he not? Most new players took 2-3 months to hit max, if not longer. The really hardcore guys who leveled to 60 asap weren't joining the game after BWL, they were in it from release.

I started playing at release (end of November) and hit 60 around the middle of January, so that sounds about right. Although, I would have gotten it earlier if I wasn't messing around so much between 55 and 60. I think I remember that I didn't want to hit 60 for a bit because I didn't think there would be as much to do. Molten Core wasn't really even a glimmer in anyone's eye at that point as people were busy raiding Stratholme.

 

[CWRMadcat]

So let me know, if my friend bought WoW March 2006, how would he catch up to me without me roping a bunch of guildies into something chances are they had no interest in doing. Just curious.

Just bring him into the main raids. For any moderately successful raiding guild, getting a reliable new member is far more important than having him geared from the outset. Getting good raiders is hard, the gearing is far far easier to do.

 

[Scotteq]

You're just jealous. :awe:

My main was a hunter back in the day, I wish I could revive the character...

This should warm your heart a little, then

 

[railven]

Railven - what server & faction do you play on? Thinking about picking the game back up.

I'm still on Medivh, I haven't left even though my Vanilla guild left long time ago. Swapped from Horde to Alliance since my friends were going that route.

Uh your friend is new to the game, is he not? Most new players took 2-3 months to hit max, if not longer. The really hardcore guys who leveled to 60 asap weren't joining the game after BWL, they were in it from release.

Of course, if your friend is actually one of those few super-dedicated 5 hours a night levelers who already knows everything about WoW, you could just take him into BWL. While I wasn't a fan of the 40 man raid size overall, one nice thing is that the impact of a single raider is so insignificant that you can easily carry one player who is under-geared for everything on farm.

I'm not really sure what your complaint is.

I wasn't running BWL in 03/2006, and for me to get a group to go back to BWL was difficult (trust me, I tried.) The issue is with no catch up, new players are left trying to catch up.

You still keep ignoring the issue I keep repeating: tell me exactly how would you task me to get 38 people to run BWL? My guild wasn't running that content anymore.

There is a reason for that. "Old WoW" endgame after leveling involves running raid after raid to get geared up and progress through item progression. It might take 5-6 months as you think, but during those months you gear up in ZG, AQ20, Onyxia, MC, BWL, potentially world bosses, AQ40, and then Naxx. You spend a lot of time because you are seeing a ton of content and it's all unique.

Ironically, you were complaining about not having time to stay with the average "LFR" raider, but here you are being completely hypocritical saying in Vanilla it was fine having to spend months (not including hitting max level) just to catch up.

The time it takes a person to catch doesn't mean the people he is catching up to freeze. They keep progressing.

In new wow, after levleing your endgame consists of farming some badge items or crafted items to get needed ilvl, doing LFR for the current raid, doing normal mode for the current raid, and then doing heroic mode for the current raid. Woohoo, you can finish it in a month, but what have you done in that month? The same damn raid with the numbers tweaked a few new mechanics introduced, boring as hell if you ask me.

I'm confused here, you had no issues farming all the previous tiers in vanilla for months (even years) but now you have an issue with a new tier every 3-4 months? Can you contradict yourself more.

So yes. Doing a different raid every month and progressing gradually is more satisfying to me than doing one raid over and over and over again at varying difficulty levels.

/facepalm

How many months did you raid each raid, and be honest:
MC
BWL
ZG
AQ20
AQ40
Naxx

And you seem to think that it really makes sense for Blizzard to spend valuable time designing and balance raids that expire and become completely pointless 6 months later.

What? Again, they've released more raid tiers in MoP faster. This is why your new train of thought makes no sense. "I'd rather farm slower and longer than the same instances over and over and over." Considering HOF launched 3 weeks after MV, then TOES 1 month after that, then ToT in 4 months and SoO in another 4 months.

You spent more time grinding the same content in vanilla than you ever did in MoP. You even said this as one of your complaints earlier.

Just bring him into the main raids. For any moderately successful raiding guild, getting a reliable new member is far more important than having him geared from the outset. Getting good raiders is hard, the gearing is far far easier to do.

I would have loved to, but my guilds in vanilla weren't friendly to "newbs." It was their responsibility to get geared, not the guilds. My first start in raid leading was during Vanilla because I did work to get my friends geared. We cleared ZG a few times, but it got progressively harder to fill a static pug as people moved on. In the end he didn't get geared, and couldn't join me in Naxx. TBC was a giant reset and he joined me in raiding there.