Concurrent players dropping - Discuss!

Post by **Rollie** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 3:09 pm

At the request of someone doing a report, I re-ran concurrent player activity as collected by Census+. Basically, you can see that concurrent players has steadily increased, and spiked at the release of The Burning Crusade. However, for the first time in tracked history, the number of concurrent players is actually decreasing since the TBC spike. Is it just a stabilization of the rush of people back to the game or is something more on the horizon?

This invariably explains why we have not had any new servers in a while, and if trends continue, I would not expect to see any additional servers come online anytime in the near future.

Important thing to note is that even though numbers have been dropping since the TBC spike, they are still above pre-TBC levels. It would be truly eye opening of the numbers start to drop below pre-TBC levels.

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/temp/activity.htm

DM. · Post by **DM.** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 4:42 pm

I think its just a stabilization thing. But given the hype of Warhammer and other soon to be released MMORPG you might start seeing players leaving the game because really TBC didn't change the game overall. Your still raiding, and your still farming, just like it was in Nov 04. Sure you got class nerfs and buffs, new toys to play with, and other cool things. But when you look at it..... Its still the same.....

Yet I'm still addicted to this game having been playing it for just over 2 years now....

Post by **Rollie** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 7:42 pm

Hehe, me too DM, me too =)

I still enjoy it. Then again, I don't go at it hard core, a little here and there so I always have things I'm still working towards.

Skyfire · Post by **Skyfire** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 10:33 pm

/me would love to be hardcore, but I'm a teen. Which is why I don't play anymore.

oiseaux · Post by **oiseaux** » Tue May 01, 2007 3:01 am

This next content patch will bring some people back to WoW, but I think only for a short time. It is like a quick fix for some people. New content comes out, they burn through it in 2 weeks and they quit again. Those aren't exactly the type of customers you want around. They aren't loyal and will drop the game for anything else with promise.

I think WoW has seen its peak. Now, if they release another expansion lets say in a year, of course people will come back to check it out. However, in the long run they need some fundamental changes in the game to really keep players.

Any game that becomes this dependent upon gear will eventually break to those who are hardcore and have no lives. Those of us who are married, have children or are just a busy person with work will never compete with these people. So a game needs to not tailor to those hardcore so much. That is why this game is at its peak. It was advertised as a casual friendly, pvp focused game and it is nothing of the sort.

I will never be a hardcore player. I do spend a lot of time in this game, but I don't let my life rot while I do it. I still take care of myself and have a social life. Some people play this game constantly and do not take care of themselves at all.

xpolockx · Post by **xpolockx** » Tue May 01, 2007 5:03 am

Yeah, no mmorpg has really mastered the balance between hardcore players and casual ones in a pvp/pve balance situation as of yet. Obviously you have to have some kind of direct correlation between time and benefit, or there wouldn't be people that continue to play the game for very long. A game based solely on casual players doesn't make much money.

However, with pvp being all about gear, it quickly becomes hardcore players always beating more casual players. The first game to come up with some kind of solution for this discrepancy will definitely corner the market. I'm not saying it's warhammer or age of conan or any other particular one... but if it ever comes around, it'll be a surefire keeper, that's for sure.

I don't see myself quitting any time soon, as I can always find something to keep myself occupied, and I also play with real life friends. If all of them quit, however, I could see myself moving on eventually once something comes out that's better or at least on par. Plus, although I do spend quite a bit of time in wow between raiding, leveling alts, and pvping from time to time, I'm married to a non-gamer and as such wow doesn't consume every day of the week.

oiseaux · Post by **oiseaux** » Tue May 01, 2007 2:10 pm

xpolockx wrote: A game based solely on casual players doesn't make much money.

I disagree completely. Casual players are Blizzard's most loyal customers. As I said, this new content patch will be a quick fix for the hardcore. Blizzard has to constantly be creating new raid content every 2-3 months whereas it was 2 years before they made another casual friendly 5 man instance (remember Dire Maul). The content they created was us having to buy TBC. Hardcore got content after content with BWL, AQ, Naxx, while the casuals just continued to play without any new content.

TBC has come and there are a lot more 5 mans. There are so many that I never expect to see another one put in the game until their next expansion. However, we will probably see 4-5 new raid instances for the hardcore.

Hardcore players expect new content while the casuals have pretty much given up on the fact that this game has become a raid love fest.

If my husband didn't play the game, then I wouldn't be here. He is the one that got me interested in it in the first place! I have always been a gamer at heart though. I owned every Nintendo system when I was a child and I even continued to play it well into my teens! haha

If Blizzard opened up classic servers I would likely reroll there and deal with the lack of 5 mans. Whereas TBC really makes me want to quit because I am frustrated beyond belief for a game.

Post by **Rollie** » Tue May 01, 2007 3:23 pm

But what is it that you are frustrated with? Have you already gone through all the 5 man content and now have nothing more to look forward to? Or what?

xpolockx · Post by **xpolockx** » Tue May 01, 2007 7:01 pm

oiseaux wrote:I disagree completely. Casual players are Blizzard's most loyal customers.

We'll just have to agree to disagree then

Hardcore players are the ones who find the most ways to continue to play the game (raid, arena for top spots, level alts of every class, etc), while casual players tend to be the ones who play up til the level cap, then quit because there's only so much to do that's solo content and that's not time-consuming. Also, many casual players can feel disconnected from the community because unless they play with other casual friends who are on at the same time, it can be tough to feel a connection. It's why many casual guilds don't last long from what I've seen, because a lot of the people don't get on enough to really get to know each other. At least this has been my experience - I've seen many more casual players come and go than hardcore ones. While the hardcore ones may "quit" the game for a short time, they usually come back.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying the system is perfect, because it leaves much to be desired. Unfortunately, most MMO's have to cater to the hardcore players or lose much of their veteran player base. For instance, FFXI was a nightmare for casual players. The people who had been playing forever (mostly Japanese players since the game was open for a year in Japan before opening to the US) completely dictated the economy and high level grouping. Considering there was no soloing past level 7 or so and you had to group, being casual was even worse because the only efficient way to level up was to static with other people who hopefully were on the same schedule as you. Plus, considering class composition was very important, it had to be people playing the right classes at the right times for you to level together. But yeah, I'm getting off topic...

Overall, I don't mind if you disagree with me, as opinions are opinions for a reason

I'm kind of in the middle, as I'm not a super casual player but I'm not glued to this game 24/7 either. I guess I'm just casual enough to not get burned out and yet hardcore enough to still raid and such. I like seeing new pve content, I'm just hoping they put more in that's not all big raids and such.

Skyfire · Post by **Skyfire** » Tue May 01, 2007 9:03 pm

You should note that the hardcore aren't even done with the current instance...

http://www.wowwiki.com/The_Burning_Crus ... rogression .

So Blizzard is ahead of the game with this one. They'll probably make the next patch a bit more casually oriented.

xpolockx · Post by **xpolockx** » Tue May 01, 2007 10:52 pm

Well, that chart isn't totally accurate, but many hardcore guilds are catching up (yay for Mal'ganis guild progression

). The reason blizzard is pushing 2.1 through is the incoming consumables nerf, which will mean raid bosses are going to be nerfed to compensate. Although, 2.1 is supposed to have more solo and small group content as well, so I guess we'll see.

Balgair · Post by **Balgair** » Wed May 02, 2007 11:14 pm

I certainly hope the solo/small group content helps, as I'm finding it getting a bit stale now. I guess my problem is I'm a hardcore casual; I play all the time, but don't like raiding or pvp, so I run out of stuff to do... there's only so many alts I can level before I get bored of those as well (I have six lvl 50+ characters...) Unfortunately I'm still too addicted to just give up; I tried to take a few days off a few weeks back, and ended up back in no time; even if I'm a bit bored I like hanging out with my ingame friends too much to not log in

DM. · Post by **DM.** » Thu May 03, 2007 9:22 am

I showed this chart to the Silvermoon community and got a nice discussion going on

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 1&pageNo=1

xpolockx · Post by **xpolockx** » Thu May 03, 2007 5:34 pm

There are no nice discussions on Mal'ganis... mostly everyone just starts insulting each other than their moms

Alanthus · Post by **Alanthus** » Sat May 05, 2007 6:51 am

The trend showed pretty early after TBC on many servers and there are a number of reasons IMO:

TBC is a very good expansion, it's more of the same for a lot of what made people play the original and what made WoW the biggest MMO ever in north america and europe. It does suffer from many of the same design decisions of the original though which essentially means that many people that came back to see if the game was more fun the second time around simply cancelled again after a while, this is true for both hardcore and casual players.

I would say that the lack of competition atm contributes strongly to the stable population and helps the game out a lot, it's a double edged sword though as I'm sure that when something shows up that can finally give WoW a run for its money it will be hard for Blizzard to deal with that competition. This has happened in the past to games like DAOC which was a success in it's own right in part because there was no new games out there offering a comparable experience for years.(quite a few unstable and/or mediocre releases though) Once a game like this gains a significant downward momentum of the player base it's very very hard to turn that around.

WoW is a very good MMO, especially for PvE it's brought a much more polished and accessible experience than anything out there before. That very accessibility may very well be at the cost of longevity though. When something comes out that appeals to the casual WoW player that doesn't have the time for more than one MMO and won't really spend a lot of time trying new ones but will jump at something with enough initial momentum that seems to fit what they are looking for we'll see if Blizzard can answer the challenge...

Cornin · Post by **Cornin** » Mon May 21, 2007 2:37 pm

DM. wrote:I think its just a stabilization thing. But given the hype of Warhammer and other soon to be released MMORPG you might start seeing players leaving the game because really TBC didn't change the game overall. Your still raiding, and your still farming, just like it was in Nov 04. Sure you got class nerfs and buffs, new toys to play with, and other cool things. But when you look at it..... Its still the same.....

I'd have to agree with you, it seemed like many people were really hoping that TBC would breathe new life into the game and when it didn't many people got upset it was still the same basic game and quit.

oiseaux · Post by **oiseaux** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:58 pm

I never checked this thread again. hehe

I want solo content that does not depend upon grinding up a reputation to exalted. I am like Balgair, a hardcore casual that does not raid. I used to play this game 8 hours+ a day, but I have cut back to about 1 hour. The only times I play is on my twink and my 10 arena games for the week. That is it.

I want pvp that the winner isn't determined by the amount of epics on his character. Different rule sets should have been implemented from the start, but it is TOO late to do that now. All the hardcore raiders would cry.

All of those things will never be full filled with this game, so I log on for about 20 minutes. Chat with ppl, say I am bored about 100 times and then log off.

I am NOT the only one though. Many people in my guild are getting bored. You can tell because raid attendance has been lacking. 2 of my really good friends in the game are sick of raiding and just bored overall. I only log on in hopes that they are online and when they aren't I log off almost immediately.

samothosch · Post by **samothosch** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 4:08 am

Rollie wrote: http://www.warcraftrealms.com/temp/activity.htm

Curious for the 5/2007 data... hope you?ll release them soon.

Well even still being interested in the game I also canceled my account 2 months ago. Actually I didn?t want to do the same mistake as with my very first char - should have stopped playing WoW in Summer 2005 when level 60 was reached and I had the t0 set completed, all 5 man instances done. Same now for my Lvl 70 char, not really enjoying arena (Druid...:p), lack of pvp content, Alliance still loosing almost every random Battleground and raiders in PvP/arena again getting over the top with Blizzard buffing the epics... well done Blizz. I?m spending my bucks in other games. Warhammer seems promising, hopefully I?ll get into the beta.

One sidenote.. after 2 months on being "clean" of WoW I accidentaly saw a teaser video of the last patch (Black Temple) in an electronics store... same bullshit as with Naxx... promoting hardcore content the common player base never will see or enjoy for a long time.

Also the graphics in the teaser video looked so outdated.. a good laugh now, but if I would have been still on "WoW" I probably would consider this 5 year old graphics engine appropiate.

I?m not able to and actually don?t WANT to center my life around WoW and the timesink/raiding bullshit. FU Tigole - the whole endgame design about EPIC ITEMS (aka e-peen) and raiding was the worst thing you ever could do. Ok, the old honor system was nearly even worse - and also endgame.

WarcraftRealms.com

Concurrent players dropping - Discuss!

Concurrent players dropping - Discuss!

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