WoW's Health: The Numbers Don't Lie, And These Look Like LEGION

Go to buyraycon.com/bellular to get 15% off your Raycon purchase this holiday season! Brought to you by Raycon. We've crunched the numbers for Season 3 of Dragonflight with one key question: has the trend changed?

[@henrythegreatamerican8136]

For a 20 year old game, it's doing fine. What other 20+ year old games have over a million people consistently paying $15 a month on top of transactions to play?

[@darkknight00621]

@@felixavenier9659I was going to say that I too see a lot of players online at least on PS5. Been loving the game as of late.

[@StarTrekNotStarWars]

This is the equivalent of saying "what other city rpgs have milked their customers as much as GTA V while player count drops and community worsens?" The problem is that WoW is a cash cow they can't let go of and Blizzard is progressively getting worse. They've not just proven it with WoW but with Diablo and others as well. Ascension is a better WoW, and games like ESO and FFXIV are now better mmorpgs.

[@AfcDom]

@@felixavenier9659can’t really compare games like that when sharding exists

[@codyp2808]

@@StarTrekNotStarWarsexcept blizz has had a marked change and consistently improved

[@julio4494]

@@felixavenier9659WoW does have tech that tries to spread players in different instances within the same zones for performance reasons. Just something to keep in mind

[@OhNoTheFace]

I imagine a lot of player that do raid are ones that PUG when they have time due to jobs or kids or whatever. So normal and therefore PUGs being fun is likely important for their actual biggest raiding group

[@saltywings41]

I really think the whole curio system for killing the boss on normal was a great idea. People don't trivialize normal progression anymore despite it being easier. Even the top guilds don't laugh at doing normal a few times because of how we get tier and curios.

[@TheRealAb216]

you get things for killing bosses ? i dont get nothing

[@michaelanderson5209]

also got azshara on normal

[@alericc1889]

The fact that Groups can drop MYTHIC RAIDS in less than two weeks shows the Raids are a JOKE and Add Ons basically play the games now.

[@halfahootmusic]

Wow is focusing on Fun more than just being Difficult and this patch is the most fun i've had in wow in a long time. I hope they keep this strategy moving forward

[@CrzBonKerz21]

Agreed!

[@thegoat2985]

@@Runawayracer dawg

[@ItsVarezen]

@@RunawayracerFar from the worst ever. BFA, Shadowland and Warlords of Draenor were the worst ever. This one is one of the better ones they’ve done.

[@peralvapedro]

@@Runawayracer For you maybe, for me it's one of the best, I can play only 3h a day at maximum and can still have an alt. Just don't have boring mechanics like shadowlands and BFA that it was a pain to farm. It's awesome =)

[@Runawayracer]

the games a j-o sim, no cap @@peralvapedro

[@JulianaBlewett]

The most deadly boss in Amirdrassil is lag.

[@Zwow007]

lmao T-Swift roots when everyone pops all their aoe CD's as soon as they spawn

[@schmidth]

Just buy a 5800x3d bro

[@lucadesanctis563]

I still get shitty groups and wipe..

[@musicilike69]

I just came back. But there's no way in hell I'm going to raid with a bunch of pugs who are just going to need on every single item that comes up.

[@reggiemillz7533]

That’s a fact bruv man times I done raiding and got jack diddly squat

[@adamfroggett845]

I was literally saying to myself before logging off wow to get ready for work today " WoW is back". I was amazed at the amount of ppl standing and walking around Val, as well as the number of ppl in Vals pvp room. Ppl were practicing their rotations, challenging one another. I couldn't help but feel like man, this game is soooo alive and I am so here for it 🙌 👏

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

It's a good feeling for sure!👍

[@StarTrekNotStarWars]

You can feel that way in any mmorpg when there's a limitation to how many players you see in a given instance in all. You honestly didn't notice his numbers very well he posted. Less are dropping, but because it's towards the bottom already. They're numbers that are close to the half of the others.

[@vearheart42]

Anecdotally Abberus was easier but it was also energizing for our guild we went into Amirdrassil guns blazing.

[@Knux865]

The numbers are looking good. I even came back and love the game again

[@SentimentalApe]

Bobby leaving and Microsoft buying Blizzard is what brought me back.

[@StarTrekNotStarWars]

Myself also for a while...but how things have turned out for Diablo and other aspects since then...

[@autumnleaf2263]

​@@StarTrekNotStarWars Bobby's last day is the 29th of December and the transition to Microsoft control has only just started. Corporations are slow moving behemoths,they had to get the buy out approved by the regulators every country they operate in. Judge them by the next year. That will be the real test.

[@acg4031]

Making pug raids better and worthwhile brought me back.

[@trippy5519]

Wish there was something better to determine game health rather than charts for content that 99.8% of people don't do

[@Cubia0w0]

Thanks for putting this out, been playing wow since vanilla and this expac is gripping me the most since wotlk. Glad to see the numbers backing up what I've been feeling!

[@brandonyoung4910]

Did you play legion?

[@sardonicspartan9343]

​@brandonyoung4910 agreed. Legion was better but Dragonflight would be the best since Legion.

[@bainebloodhoof1140]

@@sardonicspartan9343 Fun fact: all of them were shit, ff15 is the better game :)

[@Allan_Stone]

​@@bainebloodhoof1140ff15 is pretty good, story could have been more concise and combat could have been tighter, but it's not really comparable to WoW seeing as it isn't an mmo

[@slyrp3683]

@@bainebloodhoof1140 lil bro doesnt even know the right number of the mmo lmao

[@Captain.AmericaV1]

The mechanics are more fun and less punishing, increasing engagement and willingness to progress. If that it what is increasing the numbers, I'm sure they'll continue this trend.

[@Goober2289]

I had basically never had an extended break from wow since i started back in vanilla. Didnt play all that much in BFA and jumped ship completely early in shadowlands, just recently came back to try dragonflight after hearing positive about it and im having a great time

[@ASalad]

Recently returned player to WoW. Haven’t played at all since early BFA, haven’t been a very active player since WoD. Love all the new gameplay systems. New upgrade system and improved M+ are especially noteworthy, but improved crafting and gathering systems, world quests, factions, etc. and much smoother and freeform leveling systems are all fantastic too. Story sucks but whatever, War Within looks like a return to form. Will I be active from now until next expansion? Don’t know! But game is fun and rewarding again, and I’ve got plenty to play during content draughts. What’s important is that now I feel there’s actually reason to resub whenever the new content does drop.

[@TaliesinMyrddin]

I really hope they do something to let you track outdoor content - I'd love to know numbers for the version of the game I play.

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

Plenty of the people that raid also do outdoor stuff. Not everyone just raid logs etc. Also some like to chill on their alts and do other stuff than M+ or raid. Maybe some casual pvp too.

[@TaliesinMyrddin]

@@ShadowsOfThePast I'm aware

[@lstinthelag8989]

You said ten thousand and 14 but the number was just 1014. ❤

[@sorrowind366]

I came back to the game recently after a 2 year break and I gotta say that I've been enjoying the game more than ever. I started in Legion and really wasn't happy with BFA and SL, but right now the game finally feels alive and fun again. I love the variety of world content, the amount of cool transmogs and collectibles is great too. The community has also been more friendly from my experience. Lifting some faction restrictions is great, especially for someone like me who plays on both Horde and Alliance. I just really hope they keep up the good work in the next expansion as well.

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

I have had similar experiences in DF and it's nice to have a more positive vibe within the WoW community compared to the expansion which shall not be named.. Hope good things will continue to happen in TWW and beyond!

[@CosmicCleric]

After having just watched this video, I feel like I just gave birth to an accountant.

[@garebearz19]

Thank you for your hard work.

[@jdubz8173]

Not sure that I agree with guild activity representing the beating heart of the game. It's certainly relevant and better than nothing of course.

[@mike4088]

SoD brought me back in a way I didn’t think was possible

[@SmoothjazGamingTV]

I came back to WoW after leaving around BFA, and Wotlk Classic pulled me back in. DF has been great for me to jump back into Retail, partly due to gameplay but also because of the progression within the raids where they feel like a great layout to playthrough with a storyline that makes sense in a somewhat fashion. I think it's sometimes lost when Raids feel disconnected to the main Xpac themes or progression throughout the raid as an experience. Certainly Aberrus and Amirdrassil felt like great layouts to me with a decent enough story. Not mind-blowing, but enough to get me playing retail again. Hopefully they follow an improving suit in the World-Soul saga.

[@Jourifouler]

This could also be explained by all the casual players have left and its just the forever WoWers left

[@zimti7390]

Aside from narrative issues I think Dragonflight is a desperately needed W for WoW

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

Y I think it's a solid 7 or 8 for DF and if they improve on the story going forward and keep the good stuff DF had systems wise and the principles of honoring players time investments they might be up to a 8 or 9 with TWW and the rest of the Saga.

[@user-uc7rh6ik5o]

There is one thing everyone is missing about the M+ numbers. Runs are being driven up because of Heroic raiders who want to fully upgrade their hero track items. Blizzard dropped the ball on this. Aspects crests only drop from Mythic raids but also from +16s which are easy at this point. It seems Blizzard wanted Aspects crests to be a Mythic + only currency. It sucks for raiders who don't like M+ but feel forced to do it.

[@josephbegley9148]

Most players these days do not raid at Normal or above, which has been confirmed by devs multiple times. And of those Normal clears, I imagine that PUGS are an increasing portion. If "raiding as a guild is the beating heart of WoW", then this game is doomed. WoW simply has to be more than organized raiding, and you need to look to other metrics to determine the health of the game.

[@Turbotef]

Well stated! I did the whole socialize thing with three raiding guilds from 2005-2015, and I'll likely never do it again because I don't want to get attached to another group again. Taking a hardcore 10-man option away from me further cemented me not wanting to raid on a schedule anymore or with a set group. I still enjoy playing the game and doing random shenanigans with random groups. Them taking this long (should have happened in Cata IMO) to finally implement a solo queue ranked system speaks volumes, a viable world content progression system coming in along with vault implementation says a lot too. They are using whatever options they can exercise to keep raiding alive for the hardcore while placating us casuals, lol

[@86Corvus]

Ofcourse. I was a heroic raider (now called mythic) What would be the point of raiding mythic now anway? Getting valueless gear? That gear is gonna be marginally better than catch up welfare items thrown at people for free next patch... Yea... No thanks.

[@josephbegley9148]

⁠​⁠@@86CorvusGenuinely asking, but did you raid just to have wildly better gear than everyone else? Because you can still raid now and get better gear than open world gear, and months faster at that.

[@matthewjamesmjw4172]

What's the transmog at 6:16 that gives wings? Is it the toy?

[@wickanchaos7781]

i want to get back into it after i came back for SoD but its honestly overwhelming id ont know where to start. Right now im just questing in the waking isles since idkl what to do, im already 70 so im not doing it to lvl

[@julio4494]

Also account that many guilds haven’t beaten the last boss yet. My guild is progressing Fyrak this week

[@Nightstalker314]

Thanks for the shoutout.

[@lewisgarland1259]

Raiding in general has been getting less popular for a long time so I dont think its fare to measure popularity using raid clearances

[@l47l]

I pugged normal clear twice. can confirm

[@mus0rmus1c3]

He's not wrong about ICC10. That's literally how I got into raiding. It was very puggable and accessible, which was awesome

[@nitomurray6137]

Worth noting that starting number in vault, was still lower than Shadowlands or BFA lowest point. So it is the most committed or even worth calling "whales" that are remaining technically.

[@nitomurray6137]

@@felixavenier9659 It's retention he's talking, but he's usually making the wrong claims to justify a click baity headline. Then he'll rant and abuse folks on Twitter about it if they disagree. He makes a good point that the amount lost is lower in %, but that is ignoring the fact the game never dropped to those lows before. So it is the same as saying everything that would of played never even started, and we just started with the players who never leave anyways.

[@Valvad0ss]

@@nitomurray6137bellular is such a clickbait clown. Anything for the engagement and he doesn’t even try to hide it. It’s sad

[@timetoplay5018]

Well I know I’m one person that has come back from a long break from the game haven’t played since launch of shadowlands an I’m having a ton of fun

[@Srelathon]

I don't actually think Fyrakk was that much harder than Sarkareth, however I do think that some of the bosses before the final one were much harder on heroic in Amirdrassil than in Aberrus.

[@seandedeugd1584]

Where are you from Bellular ??

[@OGMikadika]

I wish we could say the same for PvP.

[@guillaumelabonte2702]

Not sure im following, how can u compare this early, maybe the raid is simply easier which add kills count.

[@alohaitsjeff]

where is that jacket from?

[@oficijalni5713]

Stone Island. “ Dorks “ section.

[@drthompson65]

I've been playing since the beta (classic) and I have enjoyed every expansion.

[@stormstrider1990]

I'm glad Dragonflight does well in some aspects (pun intended). The writing of the main story still needs some improvement, but I still enjoy it a lot more than BfA and Shadowlands combined. We don't need a pointless faction war, a rushed Old God- plot, or the freaking afterlife to make a compelling story.

[@Athetos861]

Im back at least until crimbus and def going away when ff7 rebirth comes out and dbz kakarot dlc but so far, lotta fun leveling and exploring classes again. Not going past some basic low level end game content but am leveling a few characters. Prot pally and ret, all specs of death knight so far. Wicked fun. They play smooth. Talent trees change made things much better

[@kubi0461]

I've been trying to play the world content and do see small glimpses of hope, but overall it gives "what's the point" vibes. Granted that's an improvement over past gameplay, but it ultimately has a distinct busy work mobile game style feel to it rather than playing in an rpg world. And Either there are enough people participating to where I just smash my face on the keyboard and it doesn't matter what I do or there aren't enough people and there's nothing I can challenge myself to do to make up for that. I do admit that the LFR boss designs are better than usual, except for the green on green on green on green boss that I have no idea how that one passed approval.

[@coryhenshaw2462]

​@@felixavenier9659sounds like you guys would like Classic Season of Discovery, the gameplay is simple, you can pug any raid easily, and its just about socializing with friends and fucking around. Its great fun

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

I think this became an issue when WoW went on the seasonal mode and kinda feels like the seasons are over so fast (unless you're hardcore M+ or raider) that it feels like new season is just around the corner when you've just gotten your character in a good place and then you start all over. I do reckon this is a problem only for the more casual players who can't play that many hours due to a full-time job etc but I feel like there are quite a lot of that sort of players.

[@brosirs]

Agreed. I achieved what I wanted (+20s and curve) with around 465 ilvl. Gives me nothing left to do. Farm higher keys? Why. Get more gear? Why? Do pointless world content? Why? TWW looks so much like DF 2.0 that it really needs to bring something more to pull people back. Account wide stuff is "at last" not "omgomgomg!" The rest of it? Delves (irrelevant content for me), yet another dwarven allied race (don't care), underground zones (ugly) and insects (don't care)... "what's the point?"

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

@@brosirs Personally if I was in the same spot in DF as you I'd propably roll an alt or start gearing one. Maybe dabble into some PvP or some other casual thing like collecting stuff like mounts maybe or finish some achievements for "fun". What you describe sounds to me kind of like a 1 character player problem. Nothing wrong with that I get there are loads of people like that and I think to them maybe the best thing really is to just play other games while waiting for a new season for WoW? I have the opposite problem to you as in having way too little time to play WoW to even get anything similar done as what you've already completed and I would wanna do even more than that... 😨 Edited for clarity and typos.

[@brosirs]

@@ShadowsOfThePast appreciate the thought out response. I'm actually mostly an alt kind of person. I got my evoker to 466. But, because devastation was so gutted for m+, I rolled up my BM hunter to about 460, too. Guildies and friends is the only way to complete stuff in a timely manner when you need to have a gaming/life balance (as the WoW population ages, that's needed more and more). Most of the barriers to entry in PUGs are ilvl/score related which are generally not needed, they're simply the only means of vetting that PUGs have. Even when that barrier is passed, communication is the next problem. Being on voice with people makes mechanics and coordination so much easier. Finding people, and them having the same availability as you, that's the challenge and something that neither in-game or out of game tools can do very well yet.

[@Cifer77]

As someone with no interest in raiding, it really saddens me to see the biggest WoW media channels measure WoW's success PURELY with raiding.... :( I'm not saying he shouldn't cover raiding, it's certainly the most popular aspect. But it seems according to Bellular, WoW's PvP, leveling, unique classic servers, mount and transmog collecting, means absolutely nothing in regards to WoW's health, and that the only way for WoW to succeed is to raid...

[@faizanahmad7730]

But how do you relate any of those to number of people playing the game? With raids the correlation is easy to draw, if x% of players currently playing finish the raid, then the total number of players finibsign raid increasing should mean x is increasing. How do you do a similar thing with people's collections? Think about your comment a little before just going off lol

[@JamailvanWestering]

Because they don’t matter to blizzard and transmog hunting should never matter

[@dawelim]

To be fair, they do talk about Mythic+ as well. Its hard to see comparative numbers for leveling/mount & transmog collection. Seeing the raid & mythic+ numbers is interesting and seeing the trends does give a partial look at the overall health of WoW

[@keyboardking8008]

What do you do if no raid or pvp . Just farm mounts endlessly ?

[@jagosvujovic2086]

this is kind of a stupid comment because the only way you can gauge player activity is through the amount of people that are raiding/doing m+ since blizzard doesnt release their subscriber numbers anymore

[@Nr4747]

The last raid tier of SL was much more difficult than the last raid tier of Dragonflight, though (at least on normal and heroic) - so do higher numbers really prove a reverse in trends ? I would hope so, but I'm not convinced (yet).

[@deadeus5248]

its mroe that people weere getting really tired of shadowlands story and had lost interest in the game

[@Mister_Vintage]

This whole series is copium. He is bending over backward to show green numbers but most tables show a downtrend in raw numbers. 5:10 - Nearly 30% decrease in raw number of players, nearly 30%!, but shows the green due to the raid being easier!? LOL wut

[@kevengarcia1669]

Lol, tell me you don't know how to interpret data without telling me you don't know how to interpret data.@@Mister_Vintage

[@michaelpurdon7032]

​@@kevengarcia1669lol right?

[@erenanarchy9538]

gearing up is also easier, last week my alt was 60 right now im almost gonna be able to do heroic i got 454 ilvl, no way in shadowlands i couldve done this or in any other expansion

[@jlinndemann7301]

Tell me blizzard missed a huge chance to make a caster Witch class, only dps with the Coven though. Who wouldn't wanna be a ugly witch with some cool new spells.

[@Keryth987]

I think looking at raid boss downing is not a good metric. I know so many player, including myself, who have played since vanilla, and did raid, but now the closest we get is lfr as we do not have the time or interest in investing in raids, but still do all the other stuff in the game. Raids being the end all is the past. That’s why they keep adding more and more non raid content

[@worldgate989]

So.... "Ten Thousand and Fourteen Times" and your info graphic says '1014'.

[@artfrombelow]

What sucks is these numbers will tell them that ridiculous dialogueat the Xpacs end is what everyone wants and to make more

[@Valvad0ss]

If you can’t see that they are bringing more story elements into the last content patch purely based on that mild cinematic you are delusional.

[@ssmolder]

i wonder that are the numbers today

[@mikedarling905]

i cleared normal without an issue on learning the fights

[@anyroad5455]

Retail kinda makes me feel gross. Classic is where it’s at for me. So many people playing, the world is alive in SoD.

[@MarvinMonroe]

Uhmm there are reasons to fill a leaky bucket with water. Its a good way to find the leaks

[@TheCommentFactory]

The more they make it easier to get gear the more clears you will have because it will keep players in the game who play multiple toons Any kind of time gating and rep grind hurts the game in the long run

[@ic3t3ap3ach]

now they need to fix pvp queue time healer problem and m+ tuning. sod gets more patches than retal 😂

[@uplink4567]

Wheres the wows is back baby guy starting to miss him

[@EugenTemba]

I was ready to give up after Shadowlands and write off the game forever, but my interest is definitely piqued. 🤔

[@wgwrigel1]

you rock!!!!!!!

[@simonm1233]

Im not a big raider, and as far as content im on the casual side, though as far as hours in game im quite hard-core. But i can say ive been enjoying the gearing and M+ quite a bit this expansion. Certainly more than shadowlands. It also helps that my preferred class and spec (druid tank) is in a good place.

[@fenrysk]

WOW IS BACK BABY

[@Stanleyknif3]

Age of discovery is fun its so nice having 25 level can and a fresh start the old combat it so much more chill and actually enjoyable to play. Retail is stil a unplayable bloated mess.

[@heyguyswhatshappening6210]

Good donut play

[@maxpowers4436]

Retail is as chill as you want it dont get this logic.

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

Having Classic with spells from retail is good. Nice to hear.

[@SuperZekethefreak]

Psssh. Any numbers coming out of Activision are automatically suspicious.

[@user-mi1rs8fi1i]

@2:30

[@daveobi5332]

we are going to need a difficulty between heroic and mythic if they are going to continue tuning Heroic at this difficulty level. Aberus and Amirdrasil are both such a disapointment in therms of difficulty and mythic has to high organisational requirement to be reasonable for most groups. And the larger difficulty difference between heroic and mythic doesn't help either

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

I personally would love something like 10-man mythic being a thing or something scalable with 10-20 maybe?

[@daveobi5332]

@@ShadowsOfThePastI think mythic gameplay will be worse with flex/10 man and I don't want to take something away from the people who love mythic. I just want something on the level of heroic before Abberus or slightly above

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

@@daveobi5332 When heroic was the mythic difficulty we used to have 10-man and 25-man so I don't understand why we couldn't have mythic 10-man for example. Ofc if it can't be called mythic then by all means change the name. I wouldn't ask 10-man version to drop equivalent loot to 20 man version. I doubt Blizzard will really tune the heroic harder I actually feel like they could even make Mythic easier too at some point in the future because if they see raid participation go up with "easier" raids I think they wanna keep that trend going.

[@Skwolfe]

I like chickens

[@comical4609]

Bros did Blizzard finally listen? Is WoW back?

[@ahminlaffet3555]

The drops arent big anymore becuse the lowest number of possible raiders already is reached.

[@in2it85]

*Final Fantasy 14* *No BETA's, No Datamining, No Spoilers, Everything is Fair and Blind for everyone.* *No Daily Chores or Mandatory Grind, Friendly with a big Community for all types of players.* *No Gambling Mechanics, No G2G-Pay2Win and the Hardest Endgame Raids in all of MMORPGs.*

[@trippy5519]

except the raids are utter garbage as well as the non existent pvp

[@morpheusdruidic2813]

I hope they get to comeback Comeback and shit on all the players who supported them for years and allow every newb ninja endgame access

[@TastyScotch]

SoD is a banger. Classic team doing a great job NGL

[@MrDopeDan]

the pvp event isnt good at all though

[@Cyberfauna]

I'm glad people like it. I got bored real quick with it 😢

[@wastolero]

Banger... Glad if you enjoy but lol cmon be honest

[@Caioz00r]

My current feeling about raiding is that guilds are increasingly settling for AOTC. Mythic difficulty requires a very stable group with this objective clearly in everyone's focus, which is not easy to see nowadays. I'd rather get AOTC as soon as possible with my friends and play with alt characters than go through the stress and frustration of playing mythic raid.

[@marcprezeau4407]

Real Blizzard data doesn't really inspire me into thinking their numbers are true.

[@taichou3391]

But It is data or data?

[@pmudri]

Man, please start using timestamps :)

[@justinhensley8900]

Plus all the mfers playing all the classic variations. WoW aint dying for a long time.

[@wonderclam4268]

They're selling max lvl characters raid ready.....still dead.

[@TaliesinMyrddin]

I can't believe Normal being easier means more people are sticking around, crying and shaking rn

[@ricardomolina905]

The levels of copium in this channel are higher this season as well. 😂

[@ricardomolina905]

@felixavenier9659 Guess the blizz Activision paycheck cleared out 🤷🏻‍♂️. The channel is wow related, so I respect the hustle.

[@smokeythagamer8521]

If only pvp and the social part of wow had these numbers.

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

PvP might get fixed to better state in 11.0 if the Solo Rated BG happens. In DF Blizz dropped the ball bad regarding pvp..

[@petnaby]

Lol, no. None of the systemic and historical issues have been fixed much less addressed.

[@tommyd9394]

these statistics are quite irrelevant. we should call this game the World of Boosters now. most of the kills especially the last boss through communities via boosting guilds.

[@OhNoTheFace]

Imagine being so butthurt you still try this butthurt nonsense on a data video

[@brandonboss6868]

I stopped caring for live. I only enjoy SOD. When people stopped playong the game and just started paying for carries, it made the gamr feel sower. I know they do it in classic, but there is somwthing about the simplicity. Theres far less stress when i play classic. Where live has so much FOMO.

[@Lonewolfe80]

I just can't believe people are still playing this game. Mind boggling to me.

[@framinthor]

ive said this before and ive yet to see it being disproven. there are 50% of the players playing the game since SL, and if people didn't quit during SL, they are sure as hell not quitting if Blizzard straight up shat in their mouth. so seeing that the players barely left between each patch isn't a surprise. to say "WOW IS BACK" I want to see an increase between tiers up to 100% (SL numbers)

[@rengarlothbrok5696]

Shadowlands wasnt that bad was it ? (I just never understood why they didnt make us Kill Sylvanas)

[@framinthor]

@@rengarlothbrok5696 because they love keeping main lore characters alive to bring them back for nostalgia overload

[@Junebug89]

I don't know if Shadowlands numbers is realistic. Shadowlands was the fastest selling expansion ever, no? I am pretty sure it had numbers blizzard hadn't seen since like... Cataclysm or something. Even Legion and Mists didn't have these kinds of numbers despite them being regarded some of the better expansions generally. The real problem is that Dragonflight didn't bring that huge boost in players that Shadowlands did at launch. Pretty understandable, a lot of people were pretty fed up with Shadowlands (and some of the stuff in BfA), plus all the internal issues at Blizzard had come to light. It's hard for me to really blame Dragonflight itself for its poor numbers. With Metzen back and Kotick gone, and Dragonflight seemingly have much better fundamentals than Shadowlands had, it seems there is a decent bit of hype for the coming expansion/trilogy. So I think we'll have to see if that brings in a huge influx of players like it is supposed to.

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

SL was a statistical abnormality because of the pandemic and everyone was at home and thought "I have so much time now..maybe I should pick up WoW again". Same time Blizzard failed to bring the content with their work from home shituation and production. If SL had been done with the DF content cadence it would have been a totally different expansion and DF would have a shitloads of more players (propably in millions)

[@framinthor]

@@ShadowsOfThePast you could be right but all in all, DF didn't do enough to bring anyone back really. I think DF in many ways is a better expansion than SL, but I also don't think DF did anywhere near enough to address the core issue of why people left the game to begin with. Systems were a symptom of the issue not the core of the issue. The amount of time WoW STILL wastes compared to any other game that has even a remotely similar monetization practice is just not worth it. Now, if you are someone who somehow enjoys all versions of WoW currently available, sure, maybe it is, but if someone is just a retail player, i seriously don't understand what that kind of person keeps paying a sub for

[@someguy1141]

Raz was the real final boss

[@Madkingstow]

It's sad to me that Raiding seems to be the mark of success for WoW, because it's my least favorite part. I love leveling because I get to explore the world, get immersed in the environments as the weather changes and the wildlife moves around me, working on my professions and quests, building up my gear and taking on new challenges. I spent 90% of the time playing solo, and whenever I can connect with friends and family we usually just quest together. I wish they had more content for casual players who like to put in the work to earn great rewards and take on big challenges.

[@peralvapedro]

As I see I think you like the classic experience... Why you arent playing? There is a season of discovery right now... I like but not much what are you describing, I don't like professions, but back at the day when I was a child I loved wow burning crusade and lich king. Now I just don't like, for me the fun at these days is trying to raid and do mythic with pug, gearing up and getting better, but as a casual... I can't play more than 3h a day so to me it's fun. I can't play classic more than 2h with the desire to uninstall the game...

[@Madkingstow]

I've been playing Season of Discovery and I enjoy it, but I've been playing WoW for over 15 years so there isn't anything new for me to do in classic WoW. I enjoy the improved graphics, animations, SFX, music, UI of retail, and exploring the new zones in modern expansions. I'm not criticizing people who like raiding - I think it's great that there is an option for every type of player in WoW. I just find it odd that there is so much content to explore and yet many people spend their time just running the same raids over and over again. What I personally don't like about Raiding is that I don't feel I have any impact, especially with PuGs. Sure I could use addons to see if my damage is higher than others, but when raiding you just mob up on enemies and run through rotations until they die. Out in the world my skill and gear matters alot more so its more exciting.

[@Saturni88]

As you just said World of Warcraft is a MMO not everyone plays this game just for raiding

[@rrs3795]

At like 7:28 you said sarkareth died ten thousand fourteen times instead of saying one thousand fourteen

[@stans303]

IT is simple, with Metzen back Blizzard is focused on entertaining people

[@Kelvryn]

it never left. Blizzard just had some rough spots.

[@colocode6979]

I resorted to mob grinding because can't do quest due to shear numbers.

[@jjb3406]

You sound sick

[@xarbinchaoticneutral1785]

I cant imagine ever playing retail

[@blockedperfection9278]

“I can’t imagine ever trying anything new”

[@xarbinchaoticneutral1785]

@@blockedperfection9278 I try new things all the time. Just not some Frankensteins monster called retail WoW. It's complete garbage.

[@MereguezeParty]

Blizz need to give us their stats back >:(

[@madhatterui]

wow is back baby!

[@RetroArcadeFan1]

Your thumbnail mugs, cmon man.

[@Tragiksouls]

Guilds blow. I have played since Warcraft. I will say that guilds are NOTHING like they used to be. Nobody actually CARES about anyone else. I can't even count how many times I have just HELPED guildies just to get the shaft anytime I need some assistance. I have been part of some VERY strict hardcore raid guilds and I will tell you that no matter how well you follow the rules and do what you have been told by the raid leader, they still ninja loot from you and give it to their friends also in the guild and say it's because that person has ran it "X" amount of times and they DESERVE it more than me.....(even though I won the roll). Just saying, it's also the people playing the game that make guilds stupid now.

[@keyboardking8008]

Ain't the loot personal ? As in you get the item and IF you want then you trade to others ?

[@Xfacta12482]

This is just false lmao

[@Uko980]

@@keyboardking8008 Nah blizzard half assed peoples desire for master loot back and scrapped personal loot in favor of group loot for everything aka the worst of both worlds because its the wild west out there people just need on everything the game lets them and if you want a master loot system you have to trust everyone to pass and let the loot master take it to distribute.

[@keyboardking8008]

@@Uko980 i stoped playing retail , but this was the main problem main reason i didn't join guilds for. You had no control over loot. Basically a group of friends decided where the loot goes and after they ware all geared up , maybe you could have some too

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

Shitty guilds are shitty. Good advice. My advice is to find a guild that consists of better people. I would avoid a guild with a "inner circle" like a group of IRL friends I think it's quite an obvious red flag 90% of the time.