It’s been little secret that a lot of WoW players are signing off on WoW until at least Patch 8.2, if not later. But it appears other MMOs were not ready for the mass exodus of players.
Example: ESO, made by ZeniMax Online Studios (which is the parent company of Bethesda). ESO is more known for having 6 megaservers (3 NA megaservers, 1 each for PS4, Xbox, and PC/Mac, and 3 EU megaservers for the same platform) and used to enjoy a somewhat respectable fanbase. Over the past few months though, Zeni saw a huge uptick in players, which is quickly overwhelming the megaservers, especially the PC/Mac megaservers in both regions. Suffice to say, ESO server techs have been working overtime trying to get not only Elsewyr ready to deploy tomorrow on PC/Mac, but have also been spinning up additional hardware at the datacenters in an attempt to stabilize the servers.
All this is according to a pinned post in the ESO forums. And speaking of ESO forums, not a day goes by in said forums without someone asking the question “What’s with the uptick in players” or “What cause you to leave World of Warcraft, WoW refugees?”
I don’t even want to know what the story is for the other MMOs in the genre…and I’m willing to bet Wildstar would probably be enjoying more players (no matter how small the increase) right now if it were still around today.
Yep and you can really tell there are a LOT of them. They have been talking in zone chat the way they do in WOW and the ESO folks aren’t having it. I have never seen so many people being told to be respectful and helpful. Not saying it hasn’t happened before but it’s rare as opposed to the norm.
Please if you are going to migrate to another game, assimilate don’t ruin it for the people that have been completely happy with their helpful, friendly, respectful chat.
I feel like I’ve been seeing more of these types of people in FF14 lately too. Not only with childish, offensive names(not that it never happened in the past but there are more of them) but just treating other people like garbage. Telling people to F off when we try to help them in group content, being generally bad or lazy players(they think they can roll their face across the keyboard like in WoW and still do good enough dps, and that won’t cut it), ragequitting or name calling when people fail at a mechanic or wipe. Etc.
I even made a comment about it in zone chat yesterday. I said “Hey did I log into WOW by mistake cuz zone chat is nasty” and people agreed.
I’m hoping the ones who migrate understand that they cannot act that way in these games and that there will be consequences. I really don’t want the communities to be ruined
Yeah. My brother started playing a few months ago and just had to report someone yesterday from a duty. They wiped a couple times because people were new and some d-bag started with the “you guys are f-ing retarded you all f-ing suck go kill yourselves” etc. Hope they get a well deserved vacation.
Between ESO, XIV and even Classic… Ugh, 8.2 retail GOTTA BRING IT. I’m worried, though, because I don’t know if that big bandaid in a busted xpac can hold the player exodus.
I’m just expecting 8.2 to be more of the same thing we already had. More reputations, more world quests, more azerite gear. More RNG. Blah. I’ll stick with Shadowbringers.
I wonder if some of these players that exhibit bad behavior in ESO and elsewhere were individuals who have been silenced in WoW due to repeated poor behavior?
I’m not suggesting that there aren’t “wow refugees” who are simply bored or critical of current wow, but I would like to throw out an alternate hypothesis for at least some of the people you’re talking about.
I could totally see someone who is silenced for like 3, 6, 12 months or whatever to move to a different game for a while. It’s at least plausible.
I think it’s over for BfA honestly. Classic is just in beta and it’s already way more popular than live, and the big WoW/Blizzard influencers are all over it. I don’t know how many people Shadowbringers can realistically take away, but I can tell you right away that classic is going to cannibalize BfA on a scale that no “WoW killer” ever came close to.
Classic is just a temporary fix to Blizzard’s “Warcraft” problem though because they can’t keep adding content to classic. The real test for Blizzard is going to be 9.0.
It is possible, however most of it has been happening in recent months and lately more and more often. People talking about why the left WOW and BFA in general. Asking for “ports” to Org, talking about Barrens chat lol. Some even say they are WOW refugees.
It’s really pretty easy to identify most of the recently ex-WOW players just by the differences in how they speak in zone chat and groups.
It’s funny I left wow for warframe, a looter shooter more like d3 than an mmo, and there is a thread up on their forums wondering about a sudden increase in “toxic players” and wow refugees are brought up as a possible culprit.
So yeah when you flee Bad for Azeroth for greener pastures be nice!
It’s gonna be a hard fight to stem that toxic tide. Most of these people have been “big” fish in a very casual, auto-feeding pond for a long, long time. It’s going to take one hell of a machete to cut those egos and attitudes down to size.
Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. Luckily I’ve seen people try to quiet them or ask them politely to be respectful and a few times call out the racism, political talk but for the most part if they don’t listen most of the effected zone just ignores them lol.
Gonna be a rude awakening when they find out they can’t change servers to run away from their toxicity and there is no one listening to them when they want something.
![:frowning:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")