World of Warcraft down to 5.6 million subs, lowest amount since before the launch of Burning Crusade

[Plinglebob]

Personally the only reason I stick with WoW is due to the friends I have there as we still raid 3 times a week. I personally loved Pandaria and think its some of the best world building and level design Bliz have done, but then they had to go fuck it up with the final raid (which lasted over a year) and completely screw the pooch with WoD. So many screw ups there lore and design-wise that just got worse as time and story went on.

If your looking for a new MMO and don't mind story (a LOT of it) give FF14 a look.

And a lot of fetch quests. Its a very "Final Fantasy" story though so if you hate JRPGs don't go for it. The systems in place for grouping, class leveling and crafting are all really solid and the music and graphics are great. I've been playing it casually for 3 months and my word there's a lot of stuff to do. Well worth getting even if its just the game and a months sub so you can experience the story.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

WOD isn't a failure, it successfully kept the ship from sinking for another year. If you think it was supposed to be anything else than that you are deluding yourself, Blizzard knows full well that WOW is on its way out.

And really, WOW was spent after WotLK but it just kept on going. Cata was an attempt to give WOW a reason to exist after WotLK but didn't really succeed and everything since has been Blizzard staving off the death of WOW, probably in the hope that they can get another MMO out that people will care about by that time, but they also recognize that it can't just be another WOW style MMO. They got to bring something truly fresh to the table if they want to have another success like WOW, and I am not sure such a thing can exist.

 

[Lunar Templar]

If your looking for a new MMO and don't mind story (a LOT of it) give FF14 a look.

And a lot of fetch quests. Its a very "Final Fantasy" story though so if you hate JRPGs don't go for it. The systems in place for grouping, class leveling and crafting are all really solid and the music and graphics are great. I've been playing it casually for 3 months and my word there's a lot of stuff to do. Well worth getting even if its just the game and a months sub so you can experience the story.

and 'talk to this guy' quests, and some deceptively challenging 'go here and kill this' quests as well. It's also the only FF game to really get me sad or pissed.the.fuck.off. at NPCs in the story. So the writing is head and shoulders above most the single player offerings of late as well.

 

[crono738]

If your looking for a new MMO and don't mind story (a LOT of it) give FF14 a look.

+1. Best MMO I've played in a long while.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I was excited for WoD.

Actually re-subbed and even got a CE. The hype was real. The promises were big. The fall from grace was pronounced.

Garrisons single-handedly ruined the game for me, personally.

Zero real reason to leave it and interact with others for the vast majority of the expansion...which really blows.

I mean, the leveling experience was genuinely wonderful. They did a great job with it and I think that contributed a great deal to burn out after the rest of the expansion essentially sequestered people in their individual bunkers and noticeably dropped off in quality/decent available content.

And then there was 6.1.

Just frustrating overall.

If your looking for a new MMO and don't mind story (a LOT of it) give FF14 a look.

+1. Best MMO I've played in a long while.

+2

Really enjoying it. Got the new expansion too.

Also, cat girls. And dragon girls. 10/10

 

[Ima Lemming]

I tried to get into World of Warcraft some time during the early- or mid-Pandaria stage, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the game didn't want me there if I wasn't playing since Vanilla; I didn't get to see the world before Deathwing reshaped it, Deathwing himself was no longer flying around burning everything, and many other quests were no longer playable like the one against the boss related to the blood curse plague.

And it felt like if I wanted to do anything really interesting I had to join a guild, which was too much of a commitment.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

As much as I'm sure we'll all miss WOW...none of us will miss WOW.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

If your looking for a new MMO and don't mind story (a LOT of it) give FF14 a look.

+1. Best MMO I've played in a long while.

Couldn't get into it. Not a big fan of the class system, and it's still too anime-y for my tastes. The game should've started by ploping you in a cave and letting you get a feel for the combat right from the start, instead of forcing you to go to the city first and starting the tutorial there.

Also, I got the demo on PS4, and it was pretty clearly not designed with consoles in mind.

If you're desperate for an MMO fix, and don't mind going to third-party websites to find people to play with, give Destiny a shot. It's doing a decent job of filling the WoW-sized hole in my heart.

 

[Nirallus]

Here's the problem with your rational. Subs were on the decline waaaay before WoD, you're just attributing it to WoD because you didn't like it.

That's a projection. Here's what actually happened [http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/5063-WoW-Down-to-5-6-Million-Subscribers]:

Initial hype followed by plummet. A lot of people didn't like it, and I can't blame them. What's there to like? The lore stopped being interesting the moment it started to be written for the service of the raid treadmill. Leveling is a vestigial mechanic at this point, a chore you have to slog through for tradition's sake before you can access the 'real' game, which is and always has been at level cap. The world is deserted because everyone's in their Garrison, which itself is a fancier version of those cancerous city/base/etc-building mobile games. Hardcore raiders have had nothing to do for months now. Competitive PVP is at possibly its worst state ever. Casual PvP'ers are still tanking their 2v2 rating for Conquest points because you're at such a disadvantage without it, even in non-rated PvP. World PvP is still dead; Ashran started out mediocre and quickly became a boring disaster. My guild resubscribed in the last year of MoP, moved to a high-population server, and most of us quit in disgust by this spring.

 

[Sarge034]

snip

I am aware it is a projection as that particular graph was made after MoP came out, it's just the clearest one I've found up to this point, but the point was this. WoW subs are already on the decline and a pattern is emerging. A new expansion will see a sharp uptick in subs as people pick up their toons again to check out the new content and then fall off. The downward fall is increasing in severity and the drop off is occurring faster each time (if that's a product of bad expansions or quick clear times is up for debate). My point was simply the op was trying to make it out like WoD was killing WoW when, in fact, WoW was already in it's death cycle.

 

[Lightspeaker]

That's a projection. Here's what actually happened [http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/5063-WoW-Down-to-5-6-Million-Subscribers]:

With all due respect that is very comparable to the projection except for one data point, immediately after release of WoD, being an anomalous blip.

If I was to interpret that graph I'd say that there was an initial big jump resulting from an aggressive marketing campaign drawing people in followed by a return to the normal state of gradual decline after people got over it. The decline is not dependent on WoD, the blip of increased players is an anomaly resulting directly from WoD but the overall trend has not changed.


In fact you support this with what you said:

Initial hype followed by plummet. ... My guild resubscribed in the last year of MoP, moved to a high-population server, and most of us quit in disgust by this spring.

Bunch of people rejoin, population jumps up, tons of them then stop playing again having gotten over the initial hype and then back to the business of a regular long-term decline started during Cataclysm.

 

[Nirallus]

Why does the game necessarily have to decline? If WoD had actually been good, a large portion of that spike would have stayed. Other old MMOs like EVE Online might have much more modest subscription numbers, but they've steadily risen since their launch. On the other hand, an initial large spike followed by a plummet has characterized many other "theme park" MMORPGs like Warhammer Online and WildStar, whereas EVE is a sandbox ? A sandbox made of spreadsheets, but a sandbox nonetheless.

 

[BoogieManFL]

A few raids and an extremely repetitive and unvaried daily hub isn't nearly enough.

No one is surprised, except Blizzard somehow, I guess.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Why does the game necessarily have to decline? If WoD had actually been good, a large portion of that spike would have stayed. Other old MMOs like EVE Online might have much more modest subscription numbers, but they've steadily risen since their launch. On the other hand, an initial large spike followed by a plummet has characterized many other "theme park" MMORPGs like Warhammer Online and WildStar, whereas EVE is a sandbox ? A sandbox made of spreadsheets, but a sandbox nonetheless.

EVE is a fairly unique case of a niche and specialised MMO product that very few games have ever tried to copy in style and that there is no real replacement for. In a decade there are few games that have emulated its player-controlled, player-driven style and scale. WoW, on the other hand, is the grandfather of all generic level-grinding, fantasy-themed MMOs. Of which there are an overwhelming number.

Its something of a competition thing. There are bigger and better grinding, level-based fantasy MMOs these days. WoW maintains some popularity because its always been the biggest but people inevitably burn out and move on. There's only so much content in the traditional-style MMO to experience. EVE, meanwhile, is all about constantly expanding and improving and struggling against other players; its something of a management/builder game in that respect. Which are fundamentally open-ended games.