*** Hot fixes classes that did too much dmg in the beta***
leaves classes that were too op
Nerfs pve loot and makes pvp gearing the fastest to gear
we dont care about pvp
gonna let my sub die honestly
2 Likes
I don’t even pay a sub anymore, I just farm gold to buy tokens off the AH… and if I miss one month of that, well… (looks over at SW:TOR)
2 Likes
That stat never seems to change, it’s likely hard-coded based on total realm population - not the amount of people who are actually logged in and playing.
My realm has been “FULL” at 4am when you could do a /yell Oribos or Orgrimmar offering 5 million free gold and nobody would be there to hear it.
And before you ask, no, I spent my 5 million on my big fat proto-lizard 
7 Likes
I was playing 30-40 hours a week then once all the end game systems fully kicked in I’m like yeh nah this is rubbish. I wouldn’t even play 1 hour a week now and I’ve run off tokens since SL launch glad I’m not paying real coin for this.
5 Likes
WowStar
Did they hire Gaffney?
3 Likes
The honeymoon phase of Shadowlands wore off, this is completely normal and has happened with every expansion save the first two. What remains will show popularity/interest in the game.
1 Like
Oh, atm we have a healthy population, but guild advertisement isn’t a metric I’d use to determine that. We’re less than 3 months into a new xpac so that spike of new/returning players is still rather high. The original point the OP was making is that they’ve noticed the population declining. I have also noticed this same thing in nearly all aspects of play that I engage in.
This is kind of a one-two punch situation though. Not enough players causes raids to be more difficult, more wipes happen, bosses that aren’t tuned for fewer people (I’m looking at you Council!) start to cause problems. Then more people leave. And you’re right, guilds that don’t actively recruit will fall apart due to poor/lazy leadership. But, and this is the key point, if the population really is falling, then you need those poorly managed guilds to die so that healthy well managed guilds can pick up their numbers. But as this happens you have overall less guilds, which reflects a smaller (declining) population.
Like I said previously, this issue isn’t a dramatic, eye catching event as this game starts to bleed subs. As we still have a fairly high playerbase due to a new xpac launch things are going to appear good. Until in a month or two we look around and see no one around us. I would love to see some census data about the number of guilds that are actively raiding with active members within the first two weeks compared to now. I’d imagine you’d see fewer guilds and with fewer active members.
2 Likes
People have been calling for fresh servers since they botched phase 2.
I really liked WOD… our own garrison… and AUCTION HOUSE!
1 Like
A lot of people have unsubbed. I think those who enjoy this expansion need to stop minimizing the problems and accept SL was tailor made for streamers and raid loggers. Legacy content is borked, there is no loot, very little flight paths, no whistle, no mounting in the maw, etc…
I’ve been calling this since Legion. Ion is the wow killer. Not any other game. Just Ion. The reason why we still see so many people on the forums is because a lot of players (me included) bought into the 6 month sub for the fairy transmog. Once that time is up, you will see a massive drop.
My main is on Stormrage. Trade chat is ALWAYS busy. I got on tonight to see the state of the game and it looked like a dead server. Oribos was empty.
It’s a sad state and I for one am not happy to see this game die. We all spent a lot of years invested in this and have become attached to memories. But as long as Ion and his elitist jerks are running this show, you can kiss fun goodbye.
I already uninstalled wow and decided to just casually go mess around on classic because I hate scaling and at least there, I can feel some sort of progression. My sub ends in March and I’m not coming back until Ion is fired.
21 Likes
Thats exactly how Blizzard intended for this Xpac to work. Buy tokens and it will be the death of this game in the end. People are slowly waking up to the fact this game is only for making money now. NO FUN, useless profession, NO CONTENT, and no GEAR except what you buy with your gold from tokens sold. I refuse to buy SL and won’t till they fix this hand feed crap up.
1 Like
I do think a fair few people have left and for reasons more than the loss that a ‘general hype drop’ would cause (because we knew that would happen anyhow).
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Exactly. I was a hardcore raider in Everquest and this was the mindset. Whats funny is Planes of Power and GoD were such a slap in the face of casual players. Yet when WoW came out and was successful because it was more casual friendly, hardcore EQ players would make post after post stating that the reason EQ was now failing was because some 1% raid was not tuned properly.
Its comical really. When SL subs plummet all these hardcore youtube streamers are going to come on and tell you the reason the game is now tanking is because somehow they werent rewarded more. Them being catered to disproportinately IS the problem.
I remember a youtube video of one guy going on and on about how exclusivety is what keeps people playing. The idea that you can be better and have stuff others cant causes more subs. A delusional rant by someone who does not see at all why the majority sub to this game. I dont pay 15 bucks a month so someone else can feel special.
Blizzard for some reason want this to be a hardcore esport game, but they love that casual sub money. So we have this crazy tug of war now.
16 Likes
Covenant system stinks, pvp to pve stinks, pvp balance stinks, but most of all, the lack of action on any of the previous is what’s killed SL for me.
I know some people are having fun, I want to like it, but I didn’t hit the spec lottery and don’t feel like rerolling with how abysmal loot is.
Buff Mistweaver
2 Likes
best publicly available metric to determine a game’s current fanbase/interest is Twitch. Games that are within the top 10 of viewers happen to also have high player bases. WoW is consistently in twitch’s top 10 viewer counts of all games, and the #1 mmorpg and rpg genre.
If shadowlands was as dead as some try to claim, the viewers/fans would reflect this as well as they’d go watch something else… Even right now as I am typing this reply, taking a look at twitch and sorting all games by viewers high to low, Shadowlands is currently #10, beating out games such as Apex Legends, GTA V, POE, Rust, Among Us, etc, and neck and neck with minecraft and valorant.
Actually many of them are gone.
The rest of us are waiting for a six month sub to end and spend more time here than playing.
5 Likes
Interest? Maybe. Retained subscriptions? Absolutely not. Asmongold, love him or hate him, is probably the biggest WoW streamer on twitch. Even he has said that a lot of his followers don’t play the game, they just like to watch his antics. And a lot of these WoW streamers half the time don’t even stream WoW, they’ve moved onto variety streams. Or half their stream is recapping news or other time wasters. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad WoW pulls in viewers to twitch, that can only be good for the game. But those numbers don’t represent active subs or people in game. If anything, and there’s no way to prove this, it could indicate the opposite of what you suggest. People quit and tune in to these streams to see if things have gotten better so they can come back or to scratch that WoW itch without actually having to play lol.
5 Likes
I’m not talking about when Asmongold streams, when he’s actively streaming, wow shoots up to the #1 or #2 spot on twitch. I’m talking all other times, even right now there’s just straight up gameplay streams, not recaps or whatever you’re saying, take a look for yourself.
Yeah but the point stands, some people watch these streams not for the game play but the twitch personality. That’s what has allowed so many of them to move away from WoW as a primary game and move into variety gaming streams.
1 Like
First night of the expansion i logged in and was the only person in stromwind at peak time. Thats when I knew they lost a ton of players. Not 1 bank alt not 1 guy that didn’t buy the expansion. 0 people but me. Unless it was some bizarre phasing issue.