kinda funny that outland on the EU side is suddenly getting que's after 6 oclock again... guess people are starting to trickle back for pandaria

To be honest, I'll come back for MOP and play a Panda Monk and go all the way to 85 gladly.

That's million subs.

@Kidavenger: Yeah, it's always been a problem, but it's worse this time because the DS raid has only 8 bosses. ICC had something like 12. Those 4 extend progression by at least a month for the average raid team.

@Clonedzero said:

my brothers still pretty hardcore into WoW. he keeps saying he wont play the panda expansion cus its stupid looking, but theres no way he doesnt play it lol

Is your brother one of those people that go "Pandas? how childish, they just want kids and babies to play it! WoW is serious, how could they do this." You know, one of those guys who has a problem with panda people, but not with wolf people, cow people, fish people and space goats.

I'm not going back for Pandaria because it's not like the combat is gonna be anywhere near as good as GW2. And no fee.

Should be interesting to see if Panda Mode entices any old subs to hop on board again.

Personally I went back for Cat because of the changes to Azeroth, but nothing about the new one appeals to me. Fuck Pandas.

A wild Rorie Appeared!

Anywho, ya. I don't think WoW is dieing yet or anything but some people are just bored and don't see the point in it anymore. Others find stuff to do. I'm pretty sure it will pick up again when the expansion comes out, like you said.

I'll probably check it out again before then anyway. Since I basically lost everything on my original character, I've been making a new one when I do decide to play WoW (I play it on and off). It's alright, although the mid levels, at least when I played last, feel really empty. That's always kind of been a problem though.

With most of my friends I know that there's some that will pop back in for a couple months with the new expansions but have tended to move on. Will expect the same with the Panda expansion to see it go back up for a while but guessing that they tanked their subs this year with D3 quite a bit.

@RedRoach said:

@Kidavenger: Yeah, it's always been a problem, but it's worse this time because the DS raid has only 8 bosses. ICC had something like 12. Those 4 extend progression by at least a month for the average raid team.

@Clonedzero said:

my brothers still pretty hardcore into WoW. he keeps saying he wont play the panda expansion cus its stupid looking, but theres no way he doesnt play it lol

Is your brother one of those people that go "Pandas? how childish, they just want kids and babies to play it! WoW is serious, how could they do this." You know, one of those guys who has a problem with panda people, but not with wolf people, cow people, fish people and space goats.

Yeah, Pandaria has the potential to be one of the best expansions but people keep pushing it aside because "lol pandas". Honestly Pandarens have some of the best lore and may end up having a more serious story than any of the expansions combined. The story simply isn't "oh man look one of the bad dudes that was bad from the previous games is back. Lets spend the next two years going down memory lane while we save the world." From what I understand the story is actually about how the war between the alliance and horde destroys their land and people. Also avoiding spoilers for people that actually care the final boss could have a really great build up.

9.1 Million is still a lot of people.

Might not play MoP, and that's kinda crazy, because despite all - I do love me some World of Warcraft. Guess I'm truely over it now.

Hopefully Titan will be worth obsessing over again. Even if just for a bit. Might just be I'm getting too old for obsessions of any kind.

For the love of God people, WoW losing subs has nothing to do with the lack of quality in it's content. It's been out for eight years. I'm sorry, but not everyone plays a game forever. More often than not, it's the normal drop of subscriptions before the big expansion and it will go back up.

yeah i stopped playing WoW shortly after getting a few max levels characters in cataclysm and doing the first tier raids, it just wasn't that good or fun content wise. I bought MoP already but that's mostly out of curiosity at this point and hoping it will actually be fun.

I fucking adored Cataclysm's 5-mans. Brought back memories of running Shattered Halls pre-nerf. The Cata launch was a lot funner, for me at least, than WotLK launch, which was fucking soul-crushingly easy. That said, I just came to a point in my life where I realized that I was wasting way too much time and getting nothing out of it. Now I write shit and get stuff done.

Sometimes I kick myself for spending so much time in the World of Warcraft. Other times I fondly recall shooting the shit with guildies as we ran Ulduar or Karazhan.

WoW losing subs has nothing to do with the lack of quality in it's content.

There will be a resurgence when Pandaria comes out.... however, just like with Cataclysm WoW will over all lose subs long term. The best way to figure it is just take the last 3 months of Lich King and the last 3 of Cata. I bet the difference between those numbers is anywhere from 2-3 million players. I don't see that trend changing. Even the most die hard WoW fans I know have said Pandaria doesn't bring anything to the table that actually "excites" them. They are going to stick at it, but only because of the guilds they are involved in.

How big is the starting patch for new players or for old players who de-installed the game,15-20gig?

@SmilingPig said:

How big is the starting patch for new players or for old players who de-installed the game,15-20gig?

It's big, but you can stream the game pretty quickly. like probably 100 Megs in.

This is about what I'm expecting from here out. The game's getting old, and most of the people who wanted to play have had their fill. It's still a great game, every expansion I pop in, hit the new level cap, do some raiding, and drop out again. A lot of the changes they've made are fantastic, things I wish were around when I played during the Burning Crusade, but I don't care for what they've done to raiding. There's still difficult content- the heroic modes are no joke, but they're almost identical to the non-heroic modes, so there's really no reason to play them.

I bet it will increase briefly for the new expansion.

No one I know still plays WoW, they've moved on. Those early pre-expansion zones seemed completely dead even after the revamp. That was my experience making a new character. The game is very top heavy, which is to be expected from an 8 or so year old game. When you're in that low-mid section it's just barren. I think they handle their playerbase in an odd way. Such a huge game world, so many players, yet player concentration is spread on so many servers and select few instances that the amount of players doesn't really matter if you're looking for an active MMO.

Well WoW is always at its least popular during the final months of a dying expansion. It will get a bit of a boost with MoP, the promise of new original content will get some people back. Of course WoW is past its prime, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The game is almost 7 years old, and to have 9 million subscribers is phenomenally impressive. I was an avid player throughout WoW's heyday. But the game lost me around Wotlk, they made it to easy, Blizzard traded challenge for accessibility. I came back to Cata because of promises of that challenge returning. And by some degree it had returned, but the rewards for meeting that challenge were rather empty. So I left again, with no desire to return.

People say its dying, that may be true, but in a way that a 50 year old man is dying. Past his peak yes, but still many years of enjoyment remain.

Not surprised, almost all of my friends have stopped playing during the last two years.

that's a disaster for players.