The reason that it had 12 million players is because Lich King came out too soon, once you killed the Lich King you won the game.
1 Like
True. The game ended for a lot of people at the end of wrath. It was the conclusion to imo the best storyline in this game. I did like how they added to illidans story in Legion also. Next to wolk it was a great story, and conclusion for him. Although I guess they did leave some room for illidan to return in some way since they didnât kill him off like Arthas.
WotLK was before Blizzard Entertainment was bought out by Activison,
Since as of right now Activision canât be making anything things worse
As long as you see the fools riding around on the newest store mounts this will never happen.
I agree they need to revisit their highest peak in number, look at what worked and putting them into the game.
Wrath had a lot of good things going for it that have been mercilessly pruned from the game over the years.
One of the things the current game doesnât have is the lore. Wrath had the Lich King, one of the most major lore characters everyone knows about. With him gone, WoW lacks any well-known lore character that could rival his popularity. Illidan? Heâs locked away in space with Sargeras. Azshara? Blizzard is about to waste any potential development she has by making her a mid-expansion raid boss. Old gods? Thereâs only 1 left, itâs at the bottom of the sea, and I doubt Blizzard is willing to make an entire underwater expansion based around NâZoth after how players reacted to the Vashjir zone. Back in wrath, everyone knew what the endgame of the lore was from the start, kill the lich king. Do you know what the endgame of the current expansion is? I donât and you probably donât either. We just have a pointless war over magic rocks that canât really have a decisive victory because Blizzard doesnât want to upset the horde/alliance playerbases.
Thereâs also the issue of new classes. Death knights attracted a lot of new players who wanted to play a class which used the abilities of the lich king himself. It was a very popular class and you saw a lot of them running around. All three of its talent trees were completely distinct from each other and were heavily themed. It even had the perk of every one of its talent trees being able to be a viable tank or dps. It was a true hybrid class. Demon Hunters were Blizzardâs chance to lure in new players, but aside from a couple of abilities similar to Illidanâs, they lacked most of the appeal of DKâs. They only have 2 specs, and aside from their roles, their specs arenât very different from each other from a thematic point of view. The new talent system meant the two specs only had a couple of different playstyles and that players had almost no options for a different playstyle compared to DKâs initial talent trees. Donât forget that the introduction of DHâs also led to the neutering of demo locks.
The old talent trees were also vastly superior to what we have now. Sure, the old talent system had cookie-cutter builds, but there was often some choice to be made for alternative playstyles. Mages had a true frost/fire hybrid build thanks to the ability frostfire bolt which benefited from frost and fire talents. DKs had at least SIX different specs due to all 3 trees being hyrbid trees that could dps and tank. Druids could have a true hybrid dps/tank spec with a bearcat build that was viable for all content. Even back in BC, we had strange and interesting hybrid builds such as dreamstate druids, a balance/resto hybrid which had insane mana regen. Talent points also made leveling feel more rewarding because the talent trees displayed a measurable amount of progress you were able to visually track with each level. You could see yourself getting deeper into the talent tree with each level and getting closer to unlocking a powerful new ability. These days we just have empty levels that only give us a small boost to health and actually make us weaker than we were 10 levels ago.
Wrath and BC also had a good currency system. Even if we didnât get anything from bosses, we still got points which could be used to fill in lacking gear slots. Points provided us with a measurable amount of progress to filling up the next slot. We knew at all times how close we were to getting what we wanted, and we knew how much closer we got from each kill. It also functioned as a good catch-up system since we could just farm points from easy bosses and raids to buy gear and be ready for current raids. These days weâre at the mercy of the RNG of bonus rolls. You either get something, or you donât, and thereâs know way of knowing if or when youâll get what you need. A moment of silence for the people who have gotten nothing, or just duplicates, from bonus rolls since the expansion startedâŠ
The latest addition to the game, which Wrath had no equivalent to, is also the worst and most disliked thing in the history of WoW. The awful grindfest that is artifact power and even azerite gear. The worst systems in the game that drove me and my friends into quitting. I could have possibly forgiven every other issue, but this was the tipping point. This sent me over the edge and was the straw that broke the camelâs back. You can read the 1000âs of complaint threads about it because Iâm not going to repeat what has already been said and ignored a million times.
7 Likes
It can be easy to built a new story, a viable story, about the Lich King. Remember Arthas is dead, but not the Lich King. I saw many complaints about this, why Bolvar isnât in the game. This could be a better story then what we actually have in BFA.
I miss WOTLK too. I hate the actual âlotery systemâ. It looks more like a âphone gameâ then a MMORPG. Rewards are not ârewardsâ, they are just a âcandyâ.
I dont think the market is saturated. I think Blizzard changed an MMORPG, now itâs a lotery system. Winning the same gloves 10 times isnât rewarding.
And Blizzard forgot Something really important. when I was a student at university, I did a court for sale. A teacher told us: âin any market area, there are still 80% of customers who buy the seller before the product.â Itâs so true!
Now the problem is those Customers doesnât like the seller anymore. I think this is what will kill Wow, not BFA itself.
Lack of communication, promises that are not respected, paying for a low quality of content, never respawns to the real questions⊠Looks like a Searâs 2.0
You know what else is oldâŠthat excuse. I suppose it wasnât old when 10 million bought WoD?
2 Likes
Ya. Ironically even wod gave them more money than wotlk.
The only way youâll see 12 million players again is if Azeroth is recreated in the Oasis and itâs so VR realistic you actually think youâre a Tauren. Even then the quests canât be go kill 10 of these or get 5 of this or youâll lose immersion.
One thing they can do to bring back some subscribers is dump the PC writing and give us back our Clint Eastwood type heroes. The game is saturated with female characters which I donât think they intended. A bit of a equality yes, saturation no.
1 Like
Bro, every entertainment venue has dropped viewers/players/listeners in the last decade. Entertainment has diversified, more options means people spread out, it happens.
Blizzard is never getting 12 million active players back again, any more than the Big Bang Theory will hit the 20+ ratings of the 90s. Itâs still #1, but #1 is 10-11 these days.
Blizzard = snow
Northrend = Ice and snow
Think of the Lich King Arthas and the introduction, walking in the snow, his sword, ice, frozen lake, frost dragon, the undead
The whole theme worked perfect.
Acavon
It was PvP raid, with the winner having the right for the raid.
And now?
no more PvP server
game so light for the casuals.
just doesnât have the same weight.
Last night my guild did a couple bosses on normal an we had 2 items drop at ilvl 420 we also had 4 boes drop, the boes were more exciting than the stupid titanforges
I have my issues with Blizzard just like everyone else. But WotLK was at a time when MMOs were the big genre (and WoW in particular) that everyone was playing. Minecraft was the big thing for a while and now Fortnite is what everyone is playing.
WoW can still be big, but I think its days as a global phenomenon are long gone.
And weâve âgrownâ from Wrathâs 12 million to, most likely, 1 million now (IF that).
wow, such growth
many players
much fun
Are you a Humanity alt?
People leave for all sorts of personal/financial reasons so we canât hold Blizz entirely accountable for sub losses. Recent years, with the popularity of streaming, competitive games have become popular, so people will gravitate towards those.
However, if I were to pick an area where WoW is lacking for me the past couple of years, itâs investment. Thereâs no Big Bad in the last couple of xpacs, so no one baddie that we need to look out for. Older xpacs made me feel like doing dailies/professions/rep grinds were advancing my character in some way. Now they feel like busy work to get more mounts.
The game needs to do more to drive player investment and they are having a really hard time doing that right now.
All Blizzard has to do is delete all battle royale and other esport based games, like OverWatch. Someone entice the entire world to like MMORPGs like they did back in the day.
EZPZ
thank all teh changes the playerbase asked for.
The game is old, and not likely to attract new, younger players at this point. I would venture a guess that many of the people still playing are people who did play back then.
Speaking personally, I started playing this in college, and now Iâve been out for school for 13 years, and have 2 kids. I canât play the game for the same amount of time, and the same way that I did back then, and I appreciate the changes.
Given this, and given the fact that the game is indeed old, and new people arenât likely to be playing it, I think itâs fine.