Yup, a BRAND NEW addiction. :D

HAH! Well played.

Two months after the release of Cataclysm (and harder heroics):

"Blizzard Entertainment would like to announce our current subscriber numbers are back to 9 million."

@Scott

Well, if that be the case, then i expect this statistic would be quickly glossed over in the next stockholder meeting ;-)

I will gladly shed 3 million players who think Cataclysm is too hard, and I'm sure Blizzard would too.

Snuzzle, I don't think you are quite clear on the concept of money.

@Snuzzle

yes, I'm sure Blizzard would be happy to lose 3 million customers who each pay $15 dollars a month so that you can stroke your "@@HEROIC@@" ego in Cataclysm. If the game dropped that many subscribers they'd make the next expansion so EZ mode your head would spin.

@Snuzzle

You're either incredibly ignorant, or just a troll. Business is about making money, and if Blizzard start losing subscribers because of Cata being harder then you can bet it won't stay hard for long. Casual subscribers are far more important to their business model than people like you.

Dear Snuzzle,

While hardcores like you frequently unsub for long periods of time, the casual player is consistently loyal.

I hear ya. Would it kill them to give us like a free day? What ever happened to customer appreciation?

Hey guys, think about it this way, the World's population is about 6.7 Billion. Wow's subscribers are 12 million. That means nearly 2 people in a thousand play WoW! 0.o Which is, needless to say, astounding.

This whole idea is silly. Casuals care far more about things like improved starting areas, improved questing, and a generally better level experience. If heroics are harder, so be it. It's not terribly relevant to casuals. In any case, most casuals would prefer harder heroics. Wrath heroics suck for the casuals, where everyone is rushing through. Most I know hate PUGs precisely because of this. They want to do heroics with their casual friends, who will take ten times longer doing them and consider this a *good* thing, since they're focused on enjoying the content, scenery, and story, not accumulating emblems (many of whom will never have enough to buy a complete tier set anyhow, so they're pretty much worthless to them). Every casual I know had said they enjoy doing lower level dungeons with lower level characters more, with careful pulls, crowd control, etc. They hate the frantic pace of Wrath instances and the way people rush though them. Harder heroics would be the best thing that ever happened for casuals.

I don't get why Snuzzle was voted down so harshly.

Obviously he's wrong that Blizzard wouldn't mind losing 3 million subscriptions, but the sentiment behind making heroics a bit more challenging I think isn't so awful.

Steeper gear requirements for heroics just means the regular dungeons will actually be run. It's another tier of progression, and makes running quest lines for gear in high level zones actually somewhat important - which IMO is cool. I'm not anywhere near what someone would consider hardcore, but even I don't really enjoy heroics as they are now.

It's not about ego, it's just about fun. TBC heroics were pretty enjoyable when everyone first hit 70. I'm not saying heroics have to be harder than hard mode raids or anything, but l'd be glad to see something on par with TBC heroics at launch.

The truth is, if Blizzard really does start hemorrhaging subscriptions because of this (which I don't think will actually happen), we all stand to lose something special - because you're right, they will change it.