Oh noooo, I gotta be social. Drat!
True. But all these “normal” names being available would also mean that new and retuning players haven’t been filling the void as they normally would for a new expansion. DF didn’t seem to have the surge of players that even “bad” expansions like WoD and SL did.
I named a new toon with my actual real name, correctly spelled. And then I made another toon and gave it my mother’s actual name. Several family member names were also available on another server. It has been unreal.
This is all anecdotal, but I can totally see the signs of WoW’s playerbase dropping even without having official numbers.
The battlegrounds kicking us all out for not having enough players was the real proof for me. I didn’t even know this could happen.
Well, depending on what server you’re on, that could be more the issue.
I know that in the new player server that I help out in a lot, we advise against rolling on new player or low pop servers, and recommend you find a full or high pop server.
This patch is extremely mediocre. Starting to have a lot of “forget about the game until 10.2” moments.
Want to fix world content? Just let alts level up in the new zones. The caverns Blizz spent so much time on this patch is basically thrown in the trash with all the level and quest gates placed upon it.
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So stagnation.
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When I started BfA mid-expansion, I heard names had been released. I wanted the name George, so I went from server to server until I found one where George was available, which didn’t take long. So I rolled a character named “George of the Jungle”.
Many players stopped playing during BfA and haven’t come back. We saw many players saying they were leaving, and of course there were Blizzard supporters who were claiming that they weren’t leaving, because no one ever leaves, especially not players who say they are leaving. Or they’d be back next week, next month, next patch, next expansion.
Based on what classic players told me about when and why they stopped playing retail, I concluded that players who leave in anger will not be back for several expansions, if ever. It appears that Blizzard agreed with their forum supporters and was assuming that if too many players left, they’d be right back if they heard the right thing. Or if there was some band-aid fix to some hated system mechanic.
A strong game population supports a strong economy. Bag prices are my metric of choice.
The price of bags crashed earlier this expansion, which I attributed to a glut of bags from players leveling up their tailoring, as well as fewer characters being started. They have risen again. I think that has to do with tailors quitting.
/shrug
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Is that tailors quitting, or just finding other things more profitable to craft?
They are no longer making bags. Also, players leveling a profession may have been doing it out of boredom, because there was little else to do.
The price has gone up tenfold, which is probably because there is no profit in making an item that is not in demand.
Why are they not in demand? Because fewer alts are being rolled.
If you’re talking 34 slot bags on alts, it comes down to why would you pay 10-100x more for an extra 8 total slots?
I don’t know what servers you’ve been playing on, but I’d much rather spend 1-10% the amount for ~94% of the result.
I’m talking about when I was able to buy bags and reagent bags for 7 gold. That is “crashed”.
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They crashed the market by flooding it, and now the price has recovered to that same purchase being 95 gold.
Price is determined by 2 forces. Did supply go down to raise the price, or did demand go up to raise the price?
The same number of crafters seeing how the market got so flooded that it was no longer profitable attempting to raise prices by lowering supply is just as likely of a cause as a lot of people quitting without any other data. Could be fewer alts being rolled, or or the number of alts being rolled remained constant and the supply went down due to people crafting other things with higher profit margins.
Stagnation at best.
Blizzard has admitted that DF box sales were not strong. Even if retention is good, we started with a smaller base.
Even so, in regards to player reception to the new patch, I am getting even worse vibes for 10.1 than I did for 9.1. It’s still too soon to see any definite signs, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a large drop-off is happening right now.
Open world and solo progression is what keeps those numbers high. And Zaralek Caverns is offering even less of that than I originally thought, if it’s being excluded from the Catalyst.
The die-hard hardcore PvE instanced group content demographic is probably showing strong metrics. They pretty much stay for the gear treadmill no matter what.
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Taking those together, it looks like you’re claiming that the solo/world crowd are more fickle, they want to see the content then leave compared to the “PvE instanced group content demographic”, which you seem to be saying is the group driving up the retention metric.
Yeah people dont even wanna bother with that, its sad. They want 1 button easy kills and fat loots raining on them.
It’s not fair to blame the solo/world player demographic being fickle for the cause of leaving the game, when they either don’t get as much new content or they are not getting proper progression from that content.
10.0 Primal Storms didn’t even offer necklaces, rings, or trinkets at time of release. They were just a simple mob grind with turn-in quests and rares. They weren’t even solo friendly.
10.1 Zaralek Cavern excludes players from the top half of the progression currencies (Wyrm and Aspect Crests), and now the Catalyst as well. Daily content such as world quests and rares only provides a grindy method of catching up, rather than progression into the actual season.
Can you imagine if raiders or M+ players couldn’t even get jewelry or trinket slots from their respective content? Or if they were excluded from any progression system?
Yes, the instanced group content demographic is probably seeing a higher retention rate because they are getting exactly what they ask for. They probably also account for a higher portion than normal of box sales, because the premise of the expac (three pillars with no systems or new features) is tailored to their preferences.
But higher retention rates are nothing to celebrate when you are starting off with a much smaller number.
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Yes, you only get a whole new zone added in pretty much every major patch, and sometimes added in the middle of a patch. The only thing that was added for instanced group PvE players in 10.0.5 and 10.0.7 were class/balance changes, no new event/zone like you solo/world players got (they then tried to force us into the Reach and Vaults by buffing the ring post launch).
M+ got a new set of dungeons in 10.1, but those 8 dungeons had existed in the game files since at least 10.0. So the only new content for that crowd is Aberrus.
Because name any bit of world content that is anywhere near the difficulty of even an 11 UR. World content isn’t excluded from wyrm/aspects because it’s world content, it’s excluded because it’s pants on head level easy. The game has had the rule of harder content giving better rewards almost every patch since 1.0.
This neglects the crafting element in the room. You had 5 guaranteed sparks to get the exact stated sets of rings, necks, trinkets you wanted from the crafted set. And you got the 5 free primal infusions from maxing out renown/LFR Raz once in S1, so those were higher ilvl than the primal storms gear, even after 10.0.7.
Which is no different than how they were for the majority of last patch. World quests were pretty well out-classed by primal storms/FR rares, even after their mid patch buff.
I’m going to call about 80-90% of that post the typical revisionist history that’s to be expected from you.
Blizzard doesnt want casuals money, they have shown that repeatedly. Casuals/open worlders need to vote with their wallet. Hopefully of profits tank enough they will fire the idiots deciding this stuff.
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Yes, by all means leave over your gear getting buffed.
Mop timeless isle world bosses dropped gloves/legs tier
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Was that the MoP world boss that would kill hundreds of players over the course of a typical kill?