Let’s be completely clear about why WoW saw a drop off of players in the 2010’s. While it’s true that the game did get more difficult, the more important factor is that there were just other games that people wanted to play. League of Legends and Minecraft are two games that come to mind that started becoming popular in 2011.
The fact of the matter is that if you wanted to play an online game from 2004 - 2010, you were going to play WoW.
We could spend all day talking about what a disaster Cataclysm was.
Counter Strike? Halo 2/3 on Xbox? Even Dota in WC3 custom was massive.
There are a lot of WoW content creators who only played WoW cuz they werent good enough to play other games, and they sell this lie that other online games just didnt exist (because they themself only played WoW) Which is ridiculous and not true.
WoW players are just not very good, and it takes almost nothing to make them stop.
Wrath Classic is proof of this yet again. History repeating itself.
I will accept the bad player label for him. Sounds like it and still fits the ignorant description.
Whether or not people choose to endure the headache of developing something to circumvent private auras is one thing, but the other guy is talking about the design intent.
Not as popular as WoW.
Not on the same platform as WoW
I can assure you, it wasn’t massive. It was loads of fun, but not that popular.
Agreed. But I once again am left asking my question:
The weakaura is literally just a list of the people in raid, but the same order for everyone.
If the default UI would actually show everyone’s names in the same order for everybody (like you would think it would) there wouldn’t even need to be a weakaura.
that was…derp.
Are you one of those “WoW was the first MMO” people?
From 2005-2009 NDoors became the largest online gaming company on the planet and the GARBAGE Atlantica Online at times made more money per year that WoW did while Lineage 2 constantly had more players than WoW.
You could total up all the “western” MMORPGs populations and it would equal the player base of WoW during those years making WoW about 50% of the western market, keeping in mind that half of WoW players were in Asia…but in Asia WoW was barely a drop of water in the bucket of the Asian market.
Alright? Again I’m not really talking about the weakaura itself but that private auras show the intent to not design around addons.
But yes, private auras could have been done better in that specific instance.
It’s the first MMO that mattered. Everything prior to WoW’s release was exceptionally niche.
Even as popular as a game like Runescape was, it was never a cultural touchstone.
I get the point you’re making. Blizzard aren’t making mechanics with the expectation players will need add ons to handle them and you can see that explicitly by their deliberate attempts to prevent add ons from handling their mechanics.
WoW also benefitted from the environment at the time, things like youtube coming online just a few months after WoW was introduced.
There weren’t meme videos for something like EQ or Asheron’s Call because there was no youtube back then.
(And yes, I know warcraftmovies was the main meme source for a while before youtube really took off.)
It really is the definition of 'right place, right time."
Its clear you have no grasp of gaming outside of WoW. In gaming 100% of the MMORPG market is niche and WoWs claim to fame is a South Park episode, a show that makes fun of everything, even things people know nothing about. Most people that watch South Park had no idea who Barbara Streisand even was yet made fun of her in 3 episodes. Same with their meme episode making fun of Chocolate Rain.
The FACT is during the years you proclaimed WoW as the only thing a person would play online, there were over 300,000,000 online gamers on the PC with MMORPGs in Asia with over 50,000,000 players.
Wait, what am I doing, you said earlier that Counter Strike had less players than WoW when Global Offensive sold over 25 million copies in a single year and WoW never had more than 12 million at a time with the same game still being the 5th leading e-sport game…a thing watched by more people that ever played WoW.
You are going by a spec of what the gaming world is acting as if its all there is. You are vastly out of touch.
Couple things:
CS:GO was released in 2012, 8 years after WoW was released and 2 years after it hit it’s peak subscriber number.
12 Million subscribers is not the same thing as 12 million copies sold. In 2014 Blizzard celebrated the creation of 100 million WoW accounts. These are very different numbers.
I’m frankly unconcerned with the popularity of games outside of North America. I don’t live outside NA, so I don’t care what folks in other regions are doing.
The fact of the matter is, in 2008, everyone you talked to was playing, or had at least heard of World of Warcraft.
All you are doing is re-affirming that you do not know what you are talking about and believe the small amount you know of gaming somehow applies to the planet, it does not. You were wrong and remain wrong.
It is objectively not as popular. Fewer people have played CS:GO than have WoW.
Doesn’t exist. But laziness does!
Cooldowns, utility, and defensives don’t count. Thats why they are cooldowns. Lmao.
Then go play WotLK. I don’t care if the so called “older fan base” leaves. Good riddance. I too am part of that older fan base you speak of, and have zero issue with this and rather more of an issue gravitating to participation trophies. Get gud or get out. Simple.
I don’t know how else to tell you this, but… Classic HC is a fad… like Pogs! Classic HC is the Pogs of WoW!
I tried Classic HC, too. I got to level 20 and realized, “ Wait a minute… this is just like Pogs! It isn’t fun. It’s just another fad that’s been hyped up by it’s community! I mean ‘Milk caps?!’ Why the heck am I playing with ‘Milk caps?!’ Do I enjoy wanding things to death for 15 mins.? Am I going to enjoy another 40 levels worth of this mindless ‘HC action?’”
Went back to retail, uninstalled Classic, and never looked back. Bad game was bad.
Thankfully I do not argue what is objective, but what is factual.
CS is a global E-sport phenomenon. E-Sports were watched by over 500,000,000 people in 2022 and with CS-GO being in the TOP 5 MOST popular e-sport for some 8 straight years. Its actually clear, with FACTS that more people have HEARD of Counter Strike and thus, is more popular which was his argument.
It fails on both levels. More people played CS at any one time (over 30 million in a single year) thus it was more popular and more people have heard of it which makes it more popular and far far far far far far more people WATCH other people play it, than WoW as WoW is nowhere on the e-sports list. And no, the amount of people that watch WoW youtubers and twitch is not an argument because once again Counter Strike would win.
That is why you can right this second win a $15,000,000 counter strike tournament and how much to win a WoW tournament? Right, because no one gives a poop outside of other WoW players.
Trying to go this route makes WoW look bad, stop trying to make WoW look bad. Its the king of its hill…in a gaming world of mountains.