SL has content, yea, but it’s a “wide as the ocean, shallow as a puddle” situation. Almost none of the content is meaningful, and the gear drought isn’t making things any better.
Blizzard designed the expansion around most things not being required for content. Good on paper, but therein lies the problem: If you don’t particularly care for the non-progression reward, then you won’t be playing the content, because you definitely won’t be doing it just for fun (If all the jank world quests are anything to go off of.)
Absolute worst case scenario you’re in the same place as you were early BfA: Spamming dungeons, raids, and PvP, with another contentious side-mode thing that you’re required to do to keep up. (In early BfA this was the Island Expeditions, and now its Torghast.)
There’s nothing keeping people around.
No gear drops means people are becoming demotivated much faster. Lots of the non-required content is stuck behind very clear and frustrating time gates, especially for newer characters, and doesn’t have rewards that carry the same appeal as progression. What required content there is is so obtuse and badly balanced that it in and of itself is a demotivator (Looking at you, M+).
9.1 better be bringing some huge changes, or were going to be seeing WoD level sub drops.
Plenty of other really good games out there right now, and people have one hell of a backlog built up over the last few months.
I think a lot of people are going to be taking an MMO break for the next few months, if not forever. I’m not really sure that WoW brings some of these people back no matter what systems they throw back into the game.
I think you’ll see the opposite effect of WoW’s COVID-quarantine explosion in 2021 - People are going to be going outside once they can (hopefully).
The issue with the mandatory progression chores is that yeah, no one liked them in BFA, and they got rid of them. But they also got rid of the “fun” progression like, you know - loot.
Don’t worry, all the carry sales will ensure lots of token money lining blizzard’s pockets. The bundles and inevitable store mount promotions will make up for the rest. The game will still carry on. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not.
Please try again, because nowhere in my post did I say that WoW would die. There will always be a devoted playerbase, but those who aren’t already entrenched in the raiding or M+ scene (or pvp i guess but that has always been tumultuous at best) are going to be gone if nothing changes.
Each and every expansion DOES kill WoW for many people. They stop playing, and they don’t return.
There will always be hopelessly addicted people willing to throw their entire lives away to farm mounts in a 20, 30 and 40 year old game. That’s not going to change.
its kinda eh. if it wasnt for wanting to work on getting high rated in pvp one day and collecting mounts/mogs i want there’d be little reason to play lol
Not enough to make a difference. New players are picking up the game, old ones quit for a time and come back.
There are still millions of players for a reason. There are always posts saying “This is the end” and other doom and gloom and so far it has never been the case.
I’d say expansion hype tends just do that in general. There will be a big loss through means of expansion hype dying down and more people returning to work (given that many of us are working age and above now) because of a reduction in COVID cases.
I don’t think it’s of much concern, we’ll see loot drops increased most likely and more gear selection in PvE. That along with the perks of the next patch I bet will feel pretty good.
Hmm, I don’t know. I’m having fun. My main (MW) is in a poor spot right now so I leveled up a Holy Paladin (closest healer to fistweaving) and am having a blast. Never played a Holy Paladin before. Caught up renown in a week and half. Got her geared to 197 in a week. Gonna start doing more mythic+ with her bc (unpopular opinion) I enjoy them.
I also really like that I don’t feel like I’m falling behind if I don’t log in to this character every day. The important things I need to do with her can be done in a few hours and then I can focus on the character I’m learning and having fun with the rest of the week.
Honestly I think Shadowlands is in a good spot. I look forward to the next patch and the continuation of the story and what not.
I’d honestly be surprised if there were enough actual new players to make a difference. The new player experience is pretty bad in every aspect except speed:
After ER, you’re thrust into a story with a ton of characters throwing around names with no context.
ER itself is lackluster as a tutorial and does a bad job at showcasing what the rest of the game is like.
The vanilla UI is still unwieldly garbage. Not Maplestory tier, but close.
You have no idea what direction to go in once you hit max level and run out of quests.
I’m not just pulling these out of my butt, by the way. Several people I’ve talked into at least trying to game have had at least 3 of these complaints.
Literally anywhere. Plenty of MMOs out there that may not be as big as WoW, but aren’t unhealthy in any capacity. FF14 and ESO still have quite a lot of people on when I sign in.
Can only speak for myself, but I would rather play 2-3 other mmos at this point. First time in 16 year I would say that. For me there are just way better options out there for casual play now. I am sure WoW is still the raid king but I dont care about that.
And yea I don’t like to doom and gloom as honestly WoW will be alive a decade from now no problem, but the SL sub crash ia going to be big. People go on and on about how every expansion is doom and gloom on the forums, but the contrast between month into the expac and then 2 months in is huge. Problem is many people are saying its boring which it is. Annecdotal, but that is not a good aign
MoP and legion were both disasters at launch and considered the most top tier expacs, now. even WoD and bfa are being called “good” now because of peoples opinions of SL being bad. every expansion was terrible until it wasn’t. then whatever was terrible is now great because because they have to explain why NOW is the lowest point in wow history. google “tbc killed wow” btw. or google the complaints from when AQ or naxx were released in vanilla. it’s literally been doom and gloom at this level from the beginning. it’s the same any time a patch is released. it’s literally the worst ever and wow will never recover.