Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsWorld of Warcraft dips to a mere 11.4 million subscribers
by Alex Ziebart 
May 9th 2011 at 7:00PM
During the call, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Morhaime pointed out that World of Warcraft had fallen again to pre-Cataclysm subscriber levels -- 11.4 million subscribers at the end of March, down from its peak of 12 million. Subscriber levels do not decline linearly, he pointed out, stating that they fluctuate based on how quickly players consume and complete content. Players are consuming Cataclysm's content faster than any expansion before it, so subscriber levels started to drop off more quickly than they have previously.
11.4 million subscribers still puts World of Warcraft quite far above and beyond any of its competition, and it should be noted that the numbers stated in the call came during a slow point in the expansion -- Cataclysm launched in early December, putting the end of March a good four months out. You can only expect players to consume the same content for so long, and four months is a pretty long time. If this were a single-player game and not an MMO, no developer could reasonably expect a player to consume the same content for four months. That's one-third of a year with no additions to the game, and we've only just received a content patch at the end of April. It's actually surprising to me personally that four months is faster than previous expansions.
The month of March may also have just been a bad month to poll, as competition such as RIFT launched that month. Even if the majority of the players that left World of Warcraft for RIFT eventually find their way back, the damage has been done for the month of March.
Though subscribers numbers have fallen back down to 11.4 million, overall profit has risen so far this year -- the details of which you can find in the official press release.
Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 11 of 12)
Nawaf May 10th 2011 10:00AM
I think one of the reasons for this is the Dungeon Finder.
Blizzard really should put the Dungeon Finder to only the battlegroup.
Sarabande May 10th 2011 10:15AM
I think Blizzard attempted some good things - trying to revanp old zones instead of splitting the player base by making a new version of the MMO, and I think many of the new zones are beautifully designed. Some of the quests are pretty cool. I haven't done the new OLD zone quests but heard many are very well designed.
I think some of the things that may frustrate people include . . .
- More isolation. Whether it means that the hardcore progression guy can't do as much with his casual friend because everything is done with the guild (for the xp and perks OR because of the single lockout for 10/25 man raids) or because the more casual friend has a much harder time keeping up with gearing and getting through the harder Heroic five mans, or because the phasing makes it hard to get on board with someone who's way ahead or way behind you (you can't even go in and help kill a certain mob, or even ACCESS certain areas). Or because the LFG tool (as great and convenient as it is) makes it so that you don't really MEET people in dungeons so much as do a series of tasks and then never see each other again. I remember the varieties of people you'd see in places like VoA (usually PuGged) or Wintergrasp (where even the most noobish pvper could contribute on the guns or vehicles).
- Harder content initially discouraged people. I'm fortunate that I know a lot of great players who'd help me and my guildies along on the new heroics. (I watch some of the videos but do much better learning by actually being there). But for those who have to depend on PuGs . . . well, I can see how they might want to just give up the game. PuGs of today's LFG are often horrible experiences. With unexplained vote-kicks (people not knowing the instance inside-out often won't even queue up) or groups that want to run the new heroics as if they they were in ICC Heroics gear running H-VH (and then leaving group without a word after dying from grabbing aggro or not waiting for healers to get mana) and on top of that, having the instances be quite a bit longer (though it's true, not nearly as bad as the old BRD or Maraudon runs, or the horrid early days of trying out Shadow Lab . . . ) than what we were used to in Wrath. With . . . long queues, getting vote-kicked or having to endure people leaving groups left and right in LONGER instances, well . . . . you can see how that might get old. And imagine if you STARTED in Wrath . . . and you never had to actually cc or use interrupts or whatever . . . you'd probably be baffled. I think this expansion was brutal on healers, especially. I know a lot of people who just won't heal anymore or healers who've disappeared and not come back to the game in months. Goodie bags are nice, but helping people to perform their roles (there must be a way to make it challenging and fun without making it so frustrating that they just WON'T do it anymore) better would be more helpful.
And this goes further for people who raid . . . the casual raiding guilds that thrived and had a lot of fun during Wrath, languished from the utter lack of progress in Cata. Challenging is one thing . . . but frustration beyond a point that people ceased to have any fun is something else.
I think Blizzard did try to think of many good things . . . . but some were like double-edged swords . . .
- Guild XP, Perks and Rep. In many ways, this was good in that it gave guilds . . . even the most casual ones, things to do together and new goals to accomplish. But in some ways, the bar they set for the small guilds (such as the one to give you access to Fish Feast or the 8th tab of the bank) were daunting. And in some ways, it discouraged the more impromptu PuG raids of Wrath as people wanted or were required to do everything with their guilds.
- LFG tool. This is a wonderful convenience . . . especially if you remember the days of sitting inside an instance as people scoured their friends lists and guild roster begging people to come and fill in for the hunter who had to go to bed. But it did make people less caring in many ways . . .no one spoke. People acted rudely. Vote kicks became rampant as people were easily replaceable. You didn't actually MEET people (though hopefully with that change that's supposed to put people of the same server together more often, it will improve a bit).
- Phasing. Cool technology and nice to see the how you AFFECT the area as you do the quests. But this made people isolated from each other and made the quest chains long and linear. I think maybe having small pockets of it, like in Wrath (Shadow Vaults, Wrathgate) was better. I HOPE the way they plan to do it for the upcoming Hyjal quests work better.
I just hope that, as they make improvements (and possibly make content more accessible, which WILL happen anyway as more people gear up) they can convince the bored and the discouraged to come back. It's hard to fight early frustration and discouragement though. If it's just boredom, people might come back out of curiosity when new content is released. But if people think that the content will just get HARDER and that they will fall behind even further, they may be more reluctant to come back.
Let's hope Blizzard has a good team in marketing to target and convince those very people.
Jac May 10th 2011 10:49AM
I'm all for new content, but how about new character models.
scott May 10th 2011 11:37AM
^^ new character models for the unfortunate vanilla races. i want to play em and experience the lore, but they're too damn ugly to stare at for long.
Ramzor May 10th 2011 11:02AM
Quote: " Subscriber levels do not decline linearly, he pointed out, stating that they fluctuate based on how quickly players consume and complete content. Players are consuming Cataclysm's content faster than any expansion before it "
Naxxramas in WotLK has taken more than BoT and BWD ???! sweet lies, still WotLK always increased their subscribers.
BWD and BoT are taking MORE time than any other content released by any expansion (vanilla's wow is not an expansion)
It's just Cata that sucks.
Sinister May 10th 2011 11:06AM
There was no real expansion in Cata , its a remake of the orginal WOW .. yes there are some new zones added , but its nothing like BC or Wrath where entire content was created . The starting point for Catas downfall was the nerf to healers and the talent tree revamp , as ive said before in a previous post , the freedom of choice is everything and seeing how blizz took that away in Cata , shows with 11.4 down from 12 . Someone had said that its blizzards game we pay to play , and i have to disagree with that . It becomes your game when you leave the store with it in a box , it becomes your game when you log the hours into lvlin your toon , and as a paying customer its your game with a paid monthly . When they charge you for a service , they should stick to that service and not dictate how you should be playing your game . Blizzard had better listen to the 600k or get used to declining numbers
Ramzor May 10th 2011 11:07AM
Subscribtions level fluctuate yes, but always increasing, sometime its number has grown slower but always going up.
Cataclysm made this number go down for the first time. Now where are those who stated that this is the best expansion?
scott May 10th 2011 11:30AM
the current end-game content is tuned too high. that much is obvious by the decline in subs and the comments here. i co-lead a raid group that is 9/12 due to attendance issues, and we're fairly happy with the raid content even if we're progressing slower than we'd like to.
what are my endgame choices now? i have several other 80s that i don't want to grind through to 85 because it's the exact same content i've already done twice. should i manage to suck it up and get one to 85, what are his choices for gearing up and raiding? running cata release heroics and grinding ad nauseum to get to the magic number of 346? when he gets there, does he attempt the new 4.1 heroics that are tuned so high as to NOT be puggable. and yes, they are NOT unless you get very, very lucky with your groupmates.
cata release heroics have gotten a little better because of gear and six months familiarity with the fights. the new heroics are just an exercise in futility, unless you run with a guild/raid group. i wanted to run one ZA/ZG last night when i logged in at 1am. i figured i had a good 60-90 minutes of being awake. 3 hours later i went to bed with Jindo still up and a really horrible taste in my mouth for wow.
ffs, i RAID for three hours at a time. when i want to do a heroic with notably less rewards, it shouldn't be taking me three hours no matter what stupidity the RDF throws at me.
i love a challenge. but heroic modes are for the hardcore raiders. 5 man content needs to be accessible, and blizz has failed miserably on that account here.
warren420 May 10th 2011 12:12PM
Amen to that.
Leave Hardcore Raid Modes for those who are obviously better than I can/care to be.
Normal Dungeons fun up to 85, Heroic Dungeons Fun and open at Level 85.
Dungeons with the queue time should not take longer than 30-35 minutes PER run.
I don't have a couple of hours each night to try and finish a single Heroic because LFG has given me a lower geared tank, or a newer healer, or bad DPS. Heck, I used to heal on my 4 toons in WotLK and ICC. I won't heal AT ALL with a PuG. Oh, and our level 18 guild is lucky to have more than 3 people in it at any time now. Did I mention we used to be 20+ during peak hours all the time?
Ask everyone why, and it is because content is not accessible anymore.
We can all remember the Trade Barking for Raids in WotLK, LFM ICC, Uld, ToC
No One Barks in Trade for RAIDS anymore. People are leveling to 85, and quitting
due to the GRINDS for one out of 4 levels of gear. And the time investment for the little reward (low Valor, JP's, length to complete heroic dungeon, etc, etc) is why Subs are down. And, they will keep going down. As more of my friends leave, there is less reason for me to play. PuG's are great to fill spots, but, I am here because of friends, and the only reason I am STILL here is because of them. I have friends who are much better Raiders than I, and I have friends whom I have to help carry. You have removed the ability to carry 1-2 people as long as everyone else does their part.
This is the first time in 6 years that Subs have DECREASED. Ironic it is after an expansion, and only 4 months in. Wrath the content except for Hardcore Raids. Leave those to the select few you have actually rewritten this game for. Casualize the rest. Don't just give us Epics, but lower the Dungeon times, make them completable with PuG's. Bring back a ToC to help casuals gear. Have ONE Badge system, the game exploded with players when you went to a single Badge in WotLK, and lowered the cost for the lesser items. Yes, you made the game MORE accessible to the masses, and they RESPONDED.
Umbralwrath May 10th 2011 11:56AM
I'm one of the ones that quit.
Just a temporary break more then likely, but most the content I've been doing feels like a chore. Do the dishes, put in a load of laundry, get the kids ready for school, pick up rice for the war effort, inspect the village (again), blah blah blah. I really (really, really) hate the emphasis that's been put on daily or weekly quests/token caps.
I *want* to like Cataclysm, but after hitting 85 I can't say I've enjoyed myself much.
I've gone to Rift for a bit.
Bare with me before you call "Blasphemy".
I like the rift invasions and the ability to join a public group for them with the click of a button. It's like a mini raid with decent loot that doesn't require me to have done daily's for a month just to get enough gear to even try or require as much time when I have other things I need to be doing. There's a lot in it I like better then WoW, but I will probably return to WoW after a few months...mostly because after a 5 year investment, I have a hard time leaving my stuff behind. Sadly, none of the content is calling me back; it's my family, pile of gold, and Ashes of Al'ar.
Leaving (even temporarily) was a hard decision for me, but it felt...nice. Almost a relief, actually.
gbogy30 May 10th 2011 11:59AM
I believe that part of the decline in new players is that WOW is no longer a one game buy,instead you have to pay roughly $100 for the whole set to CAT.So maybe its in Blizzards best interest to make a battle chess set again with everything included for maybe the price of a console game,such as $59.99.Then maybe more people would but it to play,or reduce the monthly fee to like $12.
Umbralwrath May 10th 2011 12:11PM
Oh...and Rift let's me dye my armor.
Probably a lame reason to prefer it, but as someone who took 2 courses in Fashion Strategies and 1 in Fashion merchandising, it's a little detail that means a lot to me.
I spend a lot of gold making my outfits look "just right" for the characters I'm playing and it's a labor of love.
KhazKhal May 10th 2011 12:07PM
I wish I could say I'd cleared all the content... Changes to end game, raid lockouts and changes to make healers work harder, etc. Raid encounters tuned so finely that running with anyone with significant lag or who hasn't been willing to grind the dungeons to gear up enough are just frustrating not fun...
I used to have a of alts, so even getting one character to max level wasn't a problem, I'd just start working on another. I have zero desire to do that after leveling a second to 85 and then not having any goals for her or raids for her. End game for more than one character is grind and frustration.
I played my Worgen thru the Worgen specific content, then she got dumped into Nelf land and was just a dog running Nelf quests.
I played my Goblin thru the Goblin specific content, then she became some kind of slum property of a bunch of Orcs and got to listen to rude people while playing Orc content.
The water zone is stunning, it makes me want to pull out my dive card and go scuba diving someplace, but I almost wish less time had been spent on that labor of love, and more time had been spent giving the new races their own homes. All that lovely Worgen architecture used only for the starting zone. All that trashy, smokey, bling of Goblin lands gone once you left the starting zone. Sad really.
I just wish that the company could look very critically at things and not just say, people consumed the content too fast. There is a lot more to it than that.
AltMaster May 10th 2011 12:10PM
It's Deathwing's fault.
TBC was the fight against the The Burning Legion. A story with a lot of lore and background. History going back to the War of the Ancients. A new continent. Stepping through the Dark Portal the first time...was...amazing.
WotLK - Again. A lot of background and lore, another new continent. Like TBC we were playing the already created story from WCIII - only in interactive 3D. We were going after Arthas. ARTHAS!
The entire storyline of WoW has been epic from 2004 until 12/7/10.
Now we're fighting Deathwing. Sure, there's a lot of background there if you look hard enough. And he seems so scary...in the trailer. And he tore the world asunder! And he made you feel completely fail during a quest in Twilight Highlands where Thrall called you a big loser because you couldn't kill him. And he fought with Alexstraza while you shot 10 dragons.
And now he's flying pointlessly and randomly over Azeroth and burning people occasionally so they can get the achievement. He's powerful enough to rise up from the Depths of Hell and destroy half the world, and then fly and occasionally burn stuff.
Not too epic, IMO. And note: No new continent.
There are many reasons why the Cataclysm may be cataclysmic for Blizzard. On the other hand, I think Firelands (and the 60ish quests there, and the building of the tree, solo content, and a sorta new continent) may be just what the doctor ordered.
But Deathwing's still kinda lame as the primary reason for the expansion. But old world flying - epic.
Moridin May 10th 2011 12:18PM
By new design you mean actually having to play with some average skill? Plenty of other games out there to play that still reward you for not trying.
baysaz May 10th 2011 12:42PM
I thought the new updated Org was the best thing in Cata....until trade chat smacked me back to reality. An hour or so on how to pull your own teeth. The everpresent "I'm so high right now". Last summer it was beastiality experiences. Enough to puke. Is the player base getting worse and worse? I didn't log in for 3 months, but did not go as far as cancelling.
Bynde May 10th 2011 12:55PM
And besides...I've yet to see that damn Dragon anywhere. If I never see DW or never get burnt by him and then he becomes a killable Boss and his random flights stop...that may piss me off enough to finally quit. I know I'll never be in a raid to kill him, so all I got is the hopes he burns me up. Don't screw that up for me, Blizz.
MrDrew May 10th 2011 12:57PM
Their stock is also doing somewhat well staying around $11 or $12.
dustin May 10th 2011 12:58PM
Every so often I'll do a 10 day trial since I have 5 accounts that get 10 day trials every 4 months or so and I consider resubbing, but then I see that I have to pay for Wrath and Catacylsm and my mind is changed promptly. If it was just a matter of starting to pay $15 a month again I'd probably do it.
Hillazon May 10th 2011 1:07PM
Recycled post from breakfast topic on changing cataclysm:
1. Unlink the 10-man and 25-man lockouts. Merging these was the worst idea ever.
2. Get rid of guild leveling and rep. It kills off smaller guilds, and makes it much more difficult to recruit and/or change guilds if you don't like the one you joined.
3. Put portals to the 85 zones and dailies in all the cities, not just Org/Stormwind.
4. Change the faction dungeon rep grind. Wrath did it so much better. There were daily heroics that gave extra rep, and eventually there were weekly raids too. Of course, merging lockouts killed this off and they will never return because pug raiding is dead.
5. Do something about Tol Barad. Both the pvp and the dailies.
6. Figure out what you want disc priests to be and STICK WITH IT.
7. How about some new heroics that aren't recycled content?
8. Interacting with an auctioneer or other city NPC automatically kicks you off your mount.
9. The events of "The Shattering" should have been in the game. Having to read about the world changes in another medium was complete and utter laziness and fail.
Wouldn't a quest involving Cairne and having to track down the Grimtotem been awesome?
Solving the mystery of the murdered druids?
What about an event defending Ironforge?
Both could have included epic Wrathgate-like cinematics.
10. The cinematics and oh-so-slow cutscenes in Uldum were TERRIBLE. Plus, there were way way way too many of them. And being the "sidekick" instead of the hero wasn't that much fun.
11. Too much phasing
12. No interconnectedness of the 80-85 zones. In BC, we had all of outland. In Wrath, all of northrend. But in Cata, all the zones were separate from each other. So there was no sense of scale, or making progress towards the "big bad" by getting physically closer and closer to it.
Where does Deathwing live? Hell if I know.
13. By making the original capitol cities accessible via ports, there was no reason to ever stay in any of the new zones. I kept my hearth in Org the entire time. I couldn't even tell you where a single inn in any of the new zones is.
And it killed the "realism" of the experience by being able to do this. Oh my god, our ship has sunk and we're trapped underwater! What shall we do?
Screw the rest of you guys, I'm hearthing back to Org. Be back later, lololol.
14. Cataclysm was unforgivably a complete failure of potential.
a. The production of it was probably rushed. There were lots of spelling errors and grammar mistakes in quest text. I never saw these in original or any of the other expansions, and I played wrath at launch day.
b. As other posters have noted, there's a lot of quests that just feel unfinished and just ... end...
c. There was no real progression towards any goal. Not like in Wrath where we were getting closer and closer to Arthas.
d. The bosses in the heroics lack personality, which Wrath had in spades.
15. There is a hint of contempt towards players by Blizzard in the design of cataclysm:
a. The "Welcome to the machine" quest line making fun of different types of players.
b. The NPCs QQing over shaman healing and abilities when you're trying to escape from the stomach of the old god in the Twilight Highlands.
It's funny in a way, but infuriating and sad as well.
16. The rejigging of health to give everyone more than 100K of health didn't accomplish anything. Bosses just hit proportionally harder, and healing was nerfed. What was the point of this?
17. Forcing players to do endless heroics before getting geared up for raids. In Wrath, there was an "entry" level raid (Naxx) that had essentially the same level gear as heroics. So you could pretty much start Naxx as soon as you had a full set of 183 level gear. And so to get a full set of 200 gear, you could do both Naxx and heroics.
18. Thrall is out doing ... something. We see him in a "dream" but that's about it. How about a quest line or something to help him? What the heck is he doing? Can't I help? [EDIT: apparently this is coming in 4.2]
19. The only zone in Wrath that felt like a bunch of "side quests" was Sholazar Basin. Everything else was directed towards fighting of Arthas's forces and getting closer and closer to the main goal of killing him.
20. Why isn't there a single breadcrumb quest to any of the raids? If I didn't read this site, wowhead, the forums, etc., I wouldn't even know that any of these raids exist.
And that's 20 reasons why I let my subscription expire in February. Boy, was Cataclysm a disappointment.