Pretty much every single game that gets released has a massive spike and drop off.
Heck, wrath classic went from 12+ hour queues on the mega servers and multiple hour queues on every other server to no queues at all on any server in 3 weeks.
Endwalker had queues for a short while then that went away.
Where did they ago?
Probably a lot. I avoided the maw completely. Only did enough choreghast to get a leggo. I did the bare minimum to be honest lol
I think FF14 is an exception of slow and steady growth from ARR->Shadowbringers, I bet they peaked maybe for all-time at this point last year as Blizzard was being tarred and feathered.
And I think New World is crawling back fairly steadily.
Then there are games like Everquest with 117 expansions (actually I think it’s 21 or something, insane regardless) that chugs along, whatever it is, even if it’s 50,000 people it stays steady. I think Eve Online has generally been like that too. STO much the same. SWTOR had a big peak and crash, then up until recent missteps it generally chugged along with its 100,000 users or whatever.
This peak and crash cycle might be normal in many games but make no mistake, it wasn’t generally normal for the MMO genre, where games either lived or died but if they did survive they generally chugged along pretty consistently compared to some fly by night FPS or battle royale or sandbox survival pump and dump games that get big on Twitch for 2 weeks and then never heard from again.
Torghast was the only fun I had, I even got the mount before they changed it.
Everything you said sounds exactly like a textbook product lifecycle.
I quit during the maw and after running torghast a few times. I think it was some of the worst mmo content in history. The sound effects in the maw were atrocious and it was designed to agravate the player in every aspect. Torghast felt like a ps2 game huge empty rooms with nothing to do. The story was a whole bunch of rubbish with very un-memorable moments. Probably the lowest point in wow history for me and Ive played every xpac since vanilla when wow launched. I would have fired whoever designed it.
Since coming back two weeks I completed the main campaign and instantly deleted everything to do with shadowlands, quests items whatever. Just want to move forward and never talk about it again.
You’re the one! The one that actually liked Torghast!!
Actually, I think I would’ve loved Torghast myself if it came with the boss rush version, the talent system and wasn’t required for legendaries like a chore IF it also rewarded gear/gold/titles/cosmetics commensurate to the effort of clearing the content, which would hopefully have at least one mode that was like designed for top 10% to clear, e.g. but not mythic raid difficulty.
Exactly the same for me. Blizzard is always hard on their decisions at the start, but as soon as those subs drop they do a reverse. You just have to wait a period for the easier way.
My main issue with the Maw was the aesthetic. I know it’s supposed to be a place we don’t want to be, and that’s the problem, that intention came through too clearly. The way it looked made me not want to be there.
I can deal with inconveniences, dangerous/tough mobs, etc but the zone being an eyesore on top all that was a bit too much.
I quit before the first LFR, cause if I am going to have a second job, I’m at least going to be paid for it!!
The Eye was the dumbest addition to the Maw it added restrictions on the time you could be there, and just add more annoyance to a horrible area.
As for Torghast, its aesthetics were better but still not amazing. It looks like if someone were asked to design an office complex around the look and feel of Icecrown… kinda dull and sterile.
I say the following with zero malice.
Whoever had a hand in designing The Maw and Torghast have zero idea what fun in a video game is, and should most likely be fired.
Their arrogance in refusing to realize that the majority of WoW players hated it, and also refusing to make it skippable if desired, only made the situation worse.
I left right after hitting max level, there’s just no way I was going to be part of that grind. Right now I’m just leveling alts up to level 50 until DF comes out. I have no desire to step into SL content.
I quit early s2 as I was just getting into The Maw and Torghast. After all the BfA fun and even N’zoth visions were enjoyable; The Maw and Torghast were just nasty time wasters
My friend got the SLs beta. He wanted to see how much pointless grinding for systems he would need to do in order to raid, and what else there was to do. He got as far as Maldraxxus, at which point they announced the release date. He quit and hasn’t played since.
When I finally got to Torghast, I started to get wrist problems.
I decided to not even buy the expansion because of it and also hearing being locked to a certain Covenant. (seems its changed now)
I bought the expansion last year. Started playing last month, and honestly at its current state, I have more positive impressions than negative.
Probably because everything is less grindy, much less stress of a specific tier set not dropping because you can convert an off-piece and alt leveling and skipping certain content was great etc.
So I’m kinda glad I started recently, but also feel like I should have started a few months earlier.
If they quit they wouldn’t be here. You have to have a subscription to enter the forums. Of course a lot of them “Preach quit” which means a big loud dramatic exit followed by slinking in the back door, waiting a bit, taking a big breath then complaining again.
I’m new to the game. 30 days. Had a lot of fun getting to level 58. Then took the offered shadow land quest and ended up in the Maw. I hated the place the only redeeming feature was running around with NPC Jaina Proudmore and some other NPC characters. Finally made it to Oribus. But I also hated that place. I don’t know exactly why though but yeah. Had no fun in ether place. Because of that the game become not fun. I was gonna stop playing but decided to entertain myself with the GD forum until the Dragonflight expansion happens but even then I will wait for reviews before I buy it, if I ever will?
Raises hand.