Can the new World of Warcraft Expansion halt Wow's decline

[CritialGaming]

Much like the description says, I wonder what people think about the new Wow expansion. From what I have seen so far it is more of the same, and frankly I'm not convinced that it would be enough to halt WoW's subscriber drop off.

mmo-champion.com has a list of the new features.

Let me know what you guys think.

 

[leberkaese]

Nothing will stop the decline of WoW. This is simply the typical product life cycle. WoW didn't even lose that many subscribers with WoD, even though it's quite bad outside of raiding (the current raids are among the best Blizzard has ever made). If you take out the spikes from releases of patches and expansions, you'll see that the decline in subscribers is pretty much the same since Cata now. WoW had 12 million subscribers during its peak at the end of WotLK, since then it's losing ~2-3 million subscribers each expansion (if you leave out said peaks from the release window).
This decline will probably slow down at one point, when the "core" stays and plays the game until its servers are shut down. And this core will probably be bigger than the peaked playerbase of most other MMORPGs.

There won't come any game changing new features to WoW. If there's no way you could enjoy the game during WoD (or MoP, or Cara,...), you'll probably never will enjoy the game again. In its basics it's the same game since vanilla, only with a lot of improvements. Admittingly, there are some things that have gotten worse over the years. But the core game things - PvE and PvP - didn't change that hugely over the years and won't ever change in a huge way that make you fall in love with the game(once again, I have to admit: PvP sucked in WoD, but that's something Blizz should fix easily).

If people actually still do enjoy the game and its mechanics they'll continue to enjoy it (well, until they get tired of it).

I don't know what people expect. You can't get back the magic you felt in the beginning of the game while exploring the world. That's not something Blizzard can put back in the game again. All you can expect from Blizzard are decent expansions that make you enjoy the game like you could enjoy the game during the last few expansions. A new continent, maybe a new race or class and some minor new game elements. That's all we can expect from WoW expansions from here on.

I will probably buy the expansion, play it for 2-3 months like I did with every single expansion (well, except BC, I played that one without a break). Nowadays I don't even have the time to do much in WoW, so I enjoyed the fact that you had so little to do during WoD...

 

[The Madman]

Halt? No. Slow? Likely.

Wow is just getting old, and as the game itself says "No king rules forever!". Even were a lot of its recent content not of questionable quality or value it would still inevitably be declining. The question now is how long can it keep it up?

Personally I suspect there are still quite a few years to go. People look at WOW's sub numbers and see the decline, but even at its current lowest point it's still got nearly four times the subscribers as any other MMO on the market. WOW's still a behemoth, it's just a behemoth that's starting to show its age.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

It will slow it down, but it is not going to stop it.

 

[Elfgore]

I picture each new expansion as nothing more than a quick fix to save the slowly sinking ship that is WoW. So, no I don't think it will halt, but it will slow it down. Hell, even I'm getting back on to give the Demon Hunter a try.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think WoW will go down anytime soon. I give it at the least another four years and even then I think it will just go F2P or something like that.

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

People keep bringing up the fact that it's "old". Many games are old but that doesn't diminish their value (if they are good). It's like people have this absurd notion that only the same people play WoW. They don't. New people come in all the time because WoW is a cultural amorphous mass that can't be missed if you are even vaguely interested in gaming. The Mona Lisa is old, but that doesn't mean new people don't appreciate it. The matter of fact is that WoW has been declining in quality since Cataclysm and Blizzard are the ones to blame. They've been churning out formulaic expansion after formulaic expansion stripping off any layers of depth the game had. It isn't an RPG anymore, it's an action game with RPG elements. There are many better games of that genre that aren't WoW.

The problems of WoW have been done to death and I don't have anything more to add to the discussion (apart from the genre change RPG -> action with rpg elements). WoW is almost an objectively bad game at this point for most people apart from the few who actively mythic raid. Not going to list the problems like I said. Can this expansion "halt" the decline? It can. Will it? Judging by the recent track record of Blizzard probably not. There is literally nothing to be hyped about because they don't address the issues that matter. Demon Hunter, Broken Isles, 9 dungeons, artifact weapons etc. Nothing of this matters because it's the farthest from the core as you can get. It's trivial dressing at this point. I've been playing recently on a vanilla private server and while vanilla is very, very bad and is more of a problem than solution it's still an objectively better GAMING EXPERIENCE (or "game" if you prefer). A whole essay can be written on the differences of vanilla and retail.

I really have no idea what's going on at Blizzard HQ, it's like they don't know what made vanilla/tbc/wotlk better (judging by Diablo 3 it's either this or going for mass appeal and failing), going for mass appeal that actively isn't working (judging by the decline of sub numbers) or they simply don't care anymore because they make more money by making online card games. I'm not convinced on the third option because they have said they doubled their production team which would be a contradiction of the "not caring" part. The second option (mass appeal) is an interesting concept because in no stretch of the word does WoW count as "mass appeal". Twelve Million subs at the end of WotLK doesn't constitute mass appeal. CoD and Battlefield on the other hand (each selling 500 MILLION COPIES) ARE mainstream titles. Watering down an RPG for mass appeal doesn't make sense, because RPGs in general aren't mainstream. I haven't researched how Bioware's offerings are doing at that front but I very much doubt they sell more than 10 million at best. You see all the violent reactions of the "fans" against Bioware and that's LOGICAL. Maybe Blizzard fail to notice this nuance. I don't know. The first option is self-explanatory. It can be either one of them or a combination of both, it doesn't really matter.

Blizzard either start hiring intelligent and talented people (gamers would be the best) who know what they are doing (or start listening to them if they have them) or WoW will "die". That's the gist of it. Make of that what you will. I don't particularly care for retail WoW at this point because it doesn't engage me in any meaningful way so I won't be crying in the corner of the shower for it.

 

[Auberon]

It's patchwork, and it won't cause a boom back to golden age (whenever that was... Burning Crusade?) I understand appeal of Warcraft 3 stuff like Illidan, Demon Hunters and Legion coming at it again - but players who still remember have probably either jumped ship after disappointments or moved on due to whatever circumstances can happen over 10 years since RTS and vanilla launch.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

People keep bringing up the fact that it's "old". Many games are old but that doesn't diminish their value (if they are good).

Oh?

Do please write up a list of the 11 year old games that still have active audiences of 5+ million. As there are "many" it should make for a substantial list...just the top 10-20 will do.

 

[Zetatrain]

The second option (mass appeal) is an interesting concept because in no stretch of the word does WoW count as "mass appeal". Twelve Million subs at the end of WotLK doesn't constitute mass appeal. CoD and Battlefield on the other hand (each selling 500 MILLION COPIES) ARE mainstream titles. Watering down an RPG for mass appeal doesn't make sense, because RPGs in general aren't mainstream. I haven't researched how Bioware's offerings are doing at that front but I very much doubt they sell more than 10 million at best.

Where are you getting your figures?

Assuming you mean total number of sales for each franchise, the figures I found for COD and Battlefield are 175 million and 60 million respectively (as of early 2015). Its a bit unfair to compare WoW's subspriction numbers to the total sales of COD or Battlefield since I'm pretty sure not everyone who has ever bought a COD or Battlefield game is still actively playing one of those titles (granted their numbers would still be greater than Wow's).

As for Bioware, the Mass Effect series has sold 10.5 million copies. I estimate that the Dragon Age series is somewhere between 5-7 million.

So in your opinion at what point is a video game franchise considered to have "mass appeal"/Mainstream?

 

[Ryotknife]

I dunno, this kinda feels like its wow last expansion. They are hinting at Sargaras emerging (and if you kill him, pretty much makes any other future threats trivial) and it looks like they are wrapping up the Emerald Nightmare loose end (which was another rumored expansion).

Although, what the crap? Demon hunters are now socially acceptable? Didnt we have an entire expansion curb stomping Illidan basically because he was a demon hunter. Illidan wasnt threatening Azeroth, just the opposite in fact. Sure he was immoral, but pretty much every bad thing he did was to the benefit of azeroth.

"And in our most desperate hour, we must wield the power of the enemy"

DUDE this is what Illidan has been saying for thousands of years, and he got crapped on by everyone. Oh but KHADGAR says it so maybe we should listen!

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

The second option (mass appeal) is an interesting concept because in no stretch of the word does WoW count as "mass appeal". Twelve Million subs at the end of WotLK doesn't constitute mass appeal. CoD and Battlefield on the other hand (each selling 500 MILLION COPIES) ARE mainstream titles. Watering down an RPG for mass appeal doesn't make sense, because RPGs in general aren't mainstream. I haven't researched how Bioware's offerings are doing at that front but I very much doubt they sell more than 10 million at best.

Where are you getting your figures?

Assuming you mean total number of sales for each franchise, the figures I found for COD and Battlefield are 175 million and 60 million respectively (as of early 2015). Its a bit unfair to compare WoW's subspriction numbers to the total sales of COD or Battlefield since I'm pretty sure not everyone who has ever bought a COD or Battlefield game is still actively playing one of those titles (granted their numbers would still be greater than Wow's).

As for Bioware, the Mass Effect series has sold 10.5 million copies. I estimate that the Dragon Age series is somewhere between 5-7 million.

So in your opinion at what point is a video game franchise considered to have "mass appeal"/Mainstream?

Yeah, sorry I got figures mixed up. it's not 500 million copies but they made 500 million dollars with the release of CoD Unit for generating highest quartely income 4395 (forgot which one). But as you can see 175 million and 60 million are much much more than WoW's highest sub number. Check out Wikipedia's list of best-selling video games. You'll notice a particular lack of any RPG except Diablo 3 which is more hack and slash than RPG. On the single platform games the lowest number is 15 mil and that's still more than WoW. But you really can't compare that to the behemoths at the top and franchises like CoD. Sales also don't account for pirates. You can argue that WoW is the "mainstream-iest" mmo but being mainstream isn't a matter of perspective or comparison to its own genre. Mainstream means being the most popular from a given media or something else (all gaming, all music etc.). It doesn't include only the ones with the highest popularity but those close to it. It's a cultural phenomenon and I'm sure I don't need to explain it further. You can look it up if you need more clarification.

Or it simply is mainstream and I'm talking out my ass. But since sub numbers talk volumes more I'm sure the new direction Blizzard have been taking isn't working out

 

[anthony87]

Although, what the crap? Demon hunters are now socially acceptable?

So are Death Knights.

Desperate times and all that.

 

[Windcaler]

Ill be honest the return of the burning legion is always something Ive been interested in but once again I find myself wanting a Warcraft RTS to tell that story rather then seeing it happen in wow. I played vinella, I played a ton of burning crusade and then I quit for several years to come back at Cataclysm because they were basicly remaking the world which really interested me. The problem with Cata (and to a lesser extent burning crusade) was by the time firelands was released I had mastered all the raids and done everything I wanted to do in the game. I remember having to force myself to still play during burning crusade till the black temple was finally out. I wanted that illidan fight so bad but when we finally downed him I was done. I had completed everything I needed to do in the game which lead to me leaving the game for a few years. I cant help but think Legion is going to be just like that and so far even though Im interested I havnt seen any big names to draw me in.

Not only that but the other problem I had with cataclysm was the game had pretty much become anonymous at that point. There was no accountability. You could suck, be a jerk, or ruin other peoples runs and get away with it. I saw it all the time in dungeons and it made me only want to play with guildmates.

I dont think legion is going to halt wow's decline though. It will slow it for sure, but not halt it. After their 3rd tier of raid content comes out and everyones finished their heroic set theyre going to go off to other games again. Besides wow has to compete with a very active and good free to play market that has a game for everyone. I could list off 20 different ones with great business models off the top of my head that will give an equal or better experience then wow can. They just dont have the massive number of players.

IMO the biggest draw of this expansion is going to be the demon hunter. People have wanted that since burning crusade and its going to bring a ton of people into this expansion just for it

 

[Windcaler]

People keep bringing up the fact that it's "old". Many games are old but that doesn't diminish their value (if they are good).

Oh?

Do please write up a list of the 11 year old games that still have active audiences of 5+ million. As there are "many" it should make for a substantial list...just the top 10-20 will do.

What does an active player/viewer base have to do with intrinsic value of any piece of art?

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

Nope and here is why: The game is impenetrable to new players, leveling is a confused mess (story wise), the zones end up hyping bosses and raids you're very unlikely to play during the initial leveling. Essentially a mass of storylines with no real conclusion. Furthermore, dungeons while leveling would be tremendously boring, last time I leveled an alt back in mists every dungeon group was 5 dps decked out in heirlooms, they were over quick, they were trivial and often with useless loot I had to vendor. I mean, pretty much the same as dungeons at max level, but they aren't much fun either.

I think Blizzard would need to radically change the level range of every old world zone allowing new players to skip outland and northrend entirely (essentially leveling 1-80 on Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor) as those two aren't really up to snuff given the experiences we get in Mists and Warlords and allow new players to experience a consistent story while leveling and feel involved in the world. Also end each old expansion with a solo scenario where you beat the big bad with a bunch of npcs, essentially a watered down version of the old raids to give new players a definitive "end" to the continents, like imagine finishing Twilight Highlands and then getting to do a little solo instance where you beat Deathwing and then get the cutscenes.

Also old players are burned out on wow, pretty much everyone who would play wow has played wow and has moved on. What we saw with Warlords was a lot of old players come back to experience the nice looking character models and such, they had a nice trip down memory lane and then left once they had to deal with the boring ass end game. This is a bit harder to fix, if you don't limit what people can do with weekly or daily lockouts for crafting, raids etc then people will burn through content damn fast and if you do limit the players they resent it. No winning. But what keeps people around are communities, good guilds with good people. If players are invested in that, then they are invested in the game, I'm not sure what they can do to better facilitate that, but it really should be the top priority for Blizzard.

 

[Alfador_VII]

It's got some interesting ideas, and could spark a recovery, but too early to tell.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

People keep bringing up the fact that it's "old". Many games are old but that doesn't diminish their value (if they are good).

Oh?

Do please write up a list of the 11 year old games that still have active audiences of 5+ million. As there are "many" it should make for a substantial list...just the top 10-20 will do.

What does an active player/viewer base have to do with intrinsic value of any piece of art?

What does your question have to do with the question I asked Tragedy's Rebellion?

The question posted in the OP is in regards to a declining player base. Tragedy's Rebellion is debating whether or not age has anything to do with it, suggesting that "good" games will have experienced no such decline in active players.

 

[EbonBehelit]

Nothing will stop the decline of WoW. This is simply the typical product life cycle. WoW didn't even lose that many subscribers with WoD,

Actually, WoWs sub base has almost halved from the launch of WoD to now. Even if you take into account the sizable spike on launch, it's impossible to deny that WoD's been an absolute disaster for the game.

Which is why Blizzard couldn't wait until Blizzcon to announce the next expansion, and also why said next expansion has playable Demon Hunters in it.

I do agree with you on the rest though: even if the next expansion stems the flow a bit - which it most likely will given the theme and aforementioned new class - WoW's record sub peak won't ever be seen again.

 

[Windcaler]

People keep bringing up the fact that it's "old". Many games are old but that doesn't diminish their value (if they are good).

Oh?

Do please write up a list of the 11 year old games that still have active audiences of 5+ million. As there are "many" it should make for a substantial list...just the top 10-20 will do.

What does an active player/viewer base have to do with intrinsic value of any piece of art?

What does your question have to do with the question I asked Tragedy's Rebellion?

The question posted in the OP is in regards to a declining player base. Tragedy's Rebellion is debating whether or not age has anything to do with it, suggesting that "good" games will have experienced no such decline in active players.

The comment I saw was "People keep bringing up the fact that it's "old". Many games are old but that doesn't diminish their value (if they are good)." which is something I wholeheartedly agree with. Far to many people, especially younger gamers, dismiss opinions that older games were good or even better then more modern versions (in my case X-com enemy unknown 1993 will always be better then Firaxis' version of x-com for a variety of reasons). Usually someone simply talks about nostalgia blinding a person to the value of said game which is a cop out in and of itself.

Your reply to that "Oh? Do please write up a list of the 11 year old games that still have active audiences of 5+ million. As there are "many" it should make for a substantial list...just the top 10-20 will do." seems to suggest that only older games with huge active player bases have any value. As if the value of something as a work of art diminishes overtime or diminishes as less and less people experience that piece of art. Its a sentiment I wholeheartedly disagree with. There may be an argument around how much value or what kinds of value a particular piece of art has but to suggest they have no value without a massive and active following is something else entirely

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The comment I saw was "People keep bringing up the fact that it's "old". Many games are old but that doesn't diminish their value (if they are good)." which is something I wholeheartedly agree with. Far to many people, especially younger gamers, dismiss opinions that older games were good or even better then more modern versions (in my case X-com enemy unknown 1993 will always be better then Firaxis' version of x-com for a variety of reasons). Usually someone simply talks about nostalgia blinding a person to the value of said game which is a cop out in and of itself.

Topic posted in OP:

Much like the description says, I wonder what people think about the new Wow expansion. From what I have seen so far it is more of the same, and frankly I'm not convinced that it would be enough to halt WoW's subscriber drop off.

That is the "decline" which the topic references. We can choose to actually address the topic that the OP has presented for conversation, or we can bloviate about a perceived artistic decline, which is utterly subjective. If you want to listen to talking heads hold forth on WoW's litany of artistic failures as ranked according to their whims, the official forums are always open to you.

As for your assertion about "younger gamers", far too many older gamers *do* let nostalgia and rose colored glasses blind them. I hear about how good gaming was "in the good old days" nigh constantly, and how gaming has become trash. It's particularly hilarious to me because my "good old days" stretch back to the very first consoles and gaming PCs. I'm nostalgic for those games. I think fondly of stuff like Zork and Archon and M.U.L.E. I think there are important lessons to be mined from gaming's history, but I'm not oblivious to the point where I'd make arguments like "Wizardry >>> Skyrim!" and then chuckle about "kids today" if someone suggested I was letting nostalgia triumph over common sense.

Your reply to that "Oh? Do please write up a list of the 11 year old games that still have active audiences of 5+ million. As there are "many" it should make for a substantial list...just the top 10-20 will do." seems to suggest that only older games with huge active player bases have any value.

No, it addressed the question posed by the OP about WoW's declining player base, and the fact that the primary and extremely evident reason for that is the game's advanced age. The fact an eleven year old game is still relevant to the tune of a 5.6 million player active base is remarkable. I cannot think offhand of a single other title that boasts that degree of staying power and success. At absolutely no point did I suggest that this fact was proof positive of "the game's intrinsic value as a piece of art".

As if the value of something as a work of art diminishes overtime or diminishes as less and less people experience that piece of art. Its a sentiment I wholeheartedly disagree with.

That's fine, but that's a conversation you are having with yourself. I never asserted any such thing.