I didn’t play Shadowlands at all. After they failed to deliver again on engaging content in BFA I was done.
I bought DF, and have leveled from 1 on a new char, went through SL and have no intention of going back there.
There are too many catches with content in WoW. It’s better now, but they have failed so often I just don’t care to give them more than I have to. Didn’t even sign up for a subscription after my time from buying the expansion is done. I just want to level and have fun.
I’m tired of the hamster wheel for gear. I don’t play for gear. And when you change so much of the fundamental game each time, it loses more and more appeal. I played this char for 15 years…I’m attached to it, and yet every expansion it’s like learning to play all over again.
I can tell you what went through my head(I ended up really liking the expansion, but I was not excited about it, what made me try it was the talents and the new profession system, that is what pulled me in).
The story was not compelling
The new class/race wasn’t compelling to me
The expansion spending resources on social politics wasn’t compelling to me
What was perceived to be very little actual content changes or unique gamemodes(still the same mythic+, raids, etc. Legion was innovative, and it feels like we’ve been playing the same expansion over and over)
The Shadowlands new leveling system was a big draw before to timewalk leveling zones. Blizzard has not done a good job adjusting the challenge and pacing of the leveling system.
True and we’ll never get a census/parameter. But a good sampling of the population, done at equivalent time points prior and now can give you a good view.
Also if someone was really willingly they can likely tie in raider.io character profiles to dataforazeroth (or make their own). However like 2 years ago blizz throttled their own servers to prevent a site just like that (wowranks io , site is now defunct)from being able to request so much character/armory info.
Think about the things you enjoy about WoW, or the thing that makes you log in every day. Pretend you didn’t like that thing. Would you log in every day?
Now imagine if that thing became the primary focus of WoW.
The game has changed a lot since release. That’s fine and normal and expected. But you’re going to lose people with change. The hope with change is that you lose people at a slower rate or, better yet, attract more people than are leaving. This becomes harder as a game ages because you’re now competing with new things. Gen Z is more likely to go to the ‘new cool game’ than the boomer game WoW is to be more blunt.
And if a majority of your population is aging, they have less free time, responsibilities, etc that replaces the time they’d normally spend on WoW.
Couple that with two expansions that were seen as bad and there’s also a lot of trust issues people have with Blizzard products. I don’t believe this is the main reason DF isn’t selling well, but it’s certainly a contributing factor.
There is a point past which people generally won’t trust you. Shadowlands pushed people past that point and no matter how good DF is, people won’t trust Blizzard. Add to it the stories about systematic abuse in Blizzard’s HQ and well, people are going to balk at spending money there.
And while DF is an improvement over SL, is it an improvement over BfA or Legion? Maybe. But maybe not enough.
The funny thing is that even with the success of Legion many people, myself included, felt that it was still an expansion that was well below MoP and everything prior. TBC, WotLK, and Cataclysm were great (the biggest failing of Cataclysm was that it followed WotLK).
Legion was a step in the right direction after WoD, at least my class was fun to play then. BfA was a joke and how they handled flight made me leave, no point to log in to gain rep for something I am already paying for access to.
I’d be happy as a clam to let us play how we played prior in the first 3 expansions. Take the leash off. Happy people will play, you don’t need to use weasel words and false statements to hype people. Just be honest.
My nephews (I don’t have kids) range all over in age from 15 to 35 with several in the young to mid 20s as well.
Not a single one likes wow. I almost got my 24 year old nephew who likes movies like lotr and the hobbit reads fantasy books like wheel of time etc…almost got him to play like ten years ago but he didn’t like the monthly sub to play and he said what you did in a round about way “takes to long to jump into the high end stuff”
I wouldnt consider it even in the same vein as fanfic. Ill admit Metzen and co werent top tier writers or creators but to equate them to fanfic writers is bad form. I felt he had passion, ideas and a logical consistency within the lore and stories being presented which are completely lacking in the current writing team.
I think world of warcraft is just now starting to feel the effects of the release of shadowlands. If you release a product that is incomplete, with very little content, and lock the remaining “promised” content behind weeks of wait-time then don’t be surprised when the next time you release content nobody buys it.
Edit: There also seems to be a pretty big stigmatization of critics on this forum, people going so far to even insult others for not enjoying the game.
Look at the last 2-3 expansions.
Lot of us including myself are just plain burnt out, and there is no amount of first aid that will fix it.
Yes I still play, but very casually, I login, do keys 2-3 days a week, clear the raid on normal, and logout.
Rest of my time is spent elsewhere
