Anniversary phase 5 population --- Off a cliff

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Last 6 weeks of Anniversary:

7/14/25 - 90,426
7/21/25 - 84,014 -7%
7/28/25 - 84,005 ~0%
8/04/25 - 82,259 -2%
8/12/25 - 81,073 -1.5%
8/19/25 - 76,791 -5.2%

That’s a 15% drop in only 6 weeks.

Time is supposed to increase player count as more people level, not decrease this drastically.

Whats next week? 70,000? 65,000?

If only there was a different form of raiding to keep people playing… a fair loot system to keep people engaged and rewarded… The Chinese servers do this method of raiding and their servers are bursting at the seems…

Maybe if someone can develop such a thing we could return to 2020/2021 phase 5 population of 360,000.

Really makes you think.

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This is where pugs stop forming so much (imagine SR aq/naxx with the current skill level of the playerbase)

It’s only good guilds clearing now.

Greys get left behind

Mids have their players stolen

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hence why FF spends all his time on the forums… His gray guild got bored of going 3/9 every week and called it until TBC :rofl:

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everyone knew this would happen, it happens on every vanilla server

after the war effort is over the pop drops rapidly

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Most guilds die around this time it’s normal.

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I don’t know that this makes much sense, but especially so if you are looking at a single version of the game.

How has the overall player subscription number changed over all World of Warcraft offerings?

MoP released recently. A new Retail season started last week. Anniversary is only one of several offerings for the same subscription.

:woman_shrugging:

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Since they are going to be consolidating and pivoting based on what parent company MS has pushed down it is not suprising.

Anniversary is no longer going to TBC and will end after this phase at which point it and the vanilla ERA servers are shutdown and all future classic effort funnelled into classic+ as a single entity.

It is what it is. Always the bottom line.

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love a good doompost

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Lmao.

That is not happening

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Is this one good?

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depends on your definition of ‘good’ and how you define what brings personal entertainment value. What do you think, is this one good?

edit: also yes lvl of effort brings up overall amusement

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And every time these posts come out and act like this is something new.

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Heavy lifting with this proposition. This assumes every anniversary player only plays anniversary. In reality players play other versions/games and take breaks when they burn out. Additionally some players are going slow burn until tbc/wrath.

75,283 players. Linear regression from your proposed population numbers

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people are always quitting family burn out other games gdkps would not save a thing just more people running 7+ alts in a week to prop up your “numbers”

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Population has dropped off at AQ40 for every iteration of vanilla since Nost.

It doesn’t make you think.

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I mean we all know what it is by now, GDKP or not

Once you see raider count level off for any version it will drop until the next thing happens. We play re-released content. It does not attract new players over an extended period like OG did to keep the count trending up

Anni vanilla peaked at 103K back in March and has been down slightly most weeks since then. Thats the top end until TBC arrives

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In your haste to drop a big ol’ pile of sarcasm on us, I think you forgot that a server like this exists *and* it’s lower pop than anniversary. Perhaps this magical loot system doesn’t keep people as engaged as you’re suggesting…

Indeed!

:thinking:

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Yeah he forgets era still exists and has a population of like 1000 :joy:

Gdkps really kept it going

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This is the best argument against GDKPs I’m gonna remember this and keep throwing it in their faces.

It’s perfect bait.

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Do you have some statistics from chinese servers to say this?