Legendary 87: World of Warcraft Loses 1.1 Million Subs


Written by: (@garygannon) | August 3, 2012 7:00 am

Legendary 87: World of Warcraft Loses 1.1 Million Subs
111 Comments

Legendary The World of Warcraft Show is back  for another week of news and insight into the WoW universe.  Topics on this weeks show inlude:

  • World of Warcraft Loses 1.1 Million Subs
  • Tier 14 Raid Delays
  • Brewfest Delayed
  • Raid Gating In MoP
  • Pet Battles & PvP
  • The Tiller Faction Opens In Beta
  • Viewer Questions & More

  • Dixhallpike

    I would like to see those number after the annual pass has finnished.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Nae-Bodee/100002134184112 Nae Bodee

      My thoughts exactly, I would have thought at least 10% of the players signed up for that. On the other hand that gives them a lot more incentive to try MOP out and continue their sub after it ends.

      But as Gary said, to go for breaking even to 1.1 drop is pretty surprising.

      • http://twitter.com/inkogni Alex

        agree, got that **** annual pass running and not playing D3, both of the games in question are in the VOID right now. i got guild wars 2, EvE, SC2 and LoL
        im happy with those

        • Damir Miric

          add smite to the list and you will be even happier

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/YSVAPKVBUPTX6YS3W2DLPOBNN4 AlokP

      1.2m AP holders still signed up, but Blizzard in evil genius mode is releasing a brand new expansion a few weeks before it’s up. They’ll have to sit around at least a few weeks subbed to a game which suddenly feels fresh and new again. Oh how weak the will of man, so the lamentations go.

  • http://twitter.com/Hellmetal789 Mark w

    i cant cancel because of my annual pass :P

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/SMGRLFM4UASOO7QO26HTHBLIOI Shawn

    Is this really surprising? WoW started dying off long time ago. Current players just haven’t realized it yet. Sad really…

    • http://www.facebook.com/Carrotatheart Timothy Cathcart

      Yep everyone who plays is just stupid and hasn’t realized how terrible the game is. All my fun is a lie!

      It’s the end of expansion blues. MoP will bring the number back up significantly.

      • Old Ben

        > everyone who plays is just stupid and
        > hasn’t realized how terrible the game is.

        Oh, don’t be unfair. A lot of them _have_ realized that. They’re just attached to their characters / guilds / friends. Or addicted to the ilevel treadmill and its eternal promise of slightly bigger numbers.

        If they were forced to give up their characters and their contacts and start from scratch (in other words, if their opinion was shaped exclusively by the _game_), I doubt most of them would bother to play all the way to 85, let alone hang in there for over 10 months, paying $150 to do Dragon Soul and Hour of Twilight again and again and again.

        But hey, as long as they find something enjoyable (even if it is just guild chat), great for them. 

      • Odeezee

        *** “it’s the end of expansion blues.” ***

        i am afraid that is factually incorrect. for every other expansion there was actually an INCREASE is subscribers close to end of an expansion.

        12/3/2004 – WoW launches with 240k subscriptions3/17/2005 – 1.5 million subscribers6/14/2005 – 2.0 million subscribers7/21/2005 – 3.5 million subscribers12/19/2005 – 5 million subscribers3/1/2006 – 6 million subscribers1/11/2007 – 8 million subscribers1/16/2007 – TBC releases7/24/2007 – 9.0 million subscribers1/22/2008 – 10.0 million subscribers
        10/28/2008 – 11.0 million subscribers
        11/13/2008 – WotLK releases 
        12/23/2008 – 11.5 million subscribers12/7/2010 – 12 million subscribers, Cataclysm releases8/3/2011 – 11.1 million subscribersQ3 2011 – 10.3 million subscribersQ4 2011 – 10.2 million subscribersQ1 2012 – 10.2 million subscribersQ2 2012 – 9.1 million subscribers 
        *** “MoP will bring the number back up significantly” ***

        we will have to wait and see this is something that we cannot possibly know. imo, it’s wishful thinking. the market has changed and there is MUCH more competition now so imo, they will continue to lose subs and stabilize around 7 mill at the most.

        • Old Ben

          Note, however, that the increase “at the end of WotLK” came from Asia (where they got TBC, not WotLK). Once the East got WotLK, subscriptions there started dropping too, as they had been in the West.

          Except for the big dip when distribution was interrupted in China (which took a couple of quarters to recover from), regional subscriptions always rose during vanilla and TBC and always fell after WotLK (and fell faster after Cataclysm).

    • JJversion1

      We’re at the end of an XP and about to start another, this is common. Dying? I highly doubt it, the number will most likely go up again when MoP get released.

      • Odeezee

        WoW losing subs before and xpack is NOT common, this is actually the very first time. sorry.

        • JJversion1

          No it’s not, it’s very common, it happened months before WotLK was released and happened months before Cata was released. It wasn’t until just before the xps releases that subs went up.

          • Old Ben

            Subscriptions rose before WotLK. They started falling in the quarter _after_ its release.

          • JJversion1

            I didn’t say that they didn’t, I said that they started rising just before WotLK’s release, but subs were bleeding off months before that. It’s common when content begins to get old at the end of an XP.

          • Old Ben

            > before WotLK’s release, but subs
            > were bleeding off months before that.

            No, they weren’t. WoW’s subscriptions were never even stationary; they rose every quarter from 2004 to the end of 2008 (and only started falling after the release of WotLK).

          • Odeezee

            sorry to burst your bubble, i have the numbers in a thread waaay above your look it up. before every xpack, TBC, WotLK and Cata subs rose, this is the first time ever that they have actually dropped. facts are facts i’m afraid. /hug

  • Noxdus

    I don’t think they will get 3.5 million new players from MoP. With GW2 coming out with no sub fees, followed closely by SWTOR going F2P in fall, parents are going to choose the most economically smart game for their kids.

    • http://twitter.com/MaZt12 MaZt

      I agree.I don’t think MoP will bring new players in knowing that in order to play MoP it requires you to have vanilla WoW and all it’s expansions which it will cost them over $100 to play it.

  • Dekin

    MIKE B! PUT ON SOME PANTS! Your epidermus is showing! Also convert to raid released your secret……of no pants…….

  • ruudik niitmets

    will be more after annual pass ends. like x2

    • Jay

       Good point. Although they only sold 1.2 mil yearly for Diablo III, I suspect other people with yearly passes won’t be buying another.

  • Eggers

    Diablo III was part of the reason for the subscription loss, but the servers in Rift (which has better raiding content the WoW) seems a bit more full, and I do know a lot of people that have left or will be leaving WoW for GW2.  LoL is also a big reason for the sub lose.  And the big reason for the loss is that Blizzard hasn’t given any new content since November of 2011.  MoP will cause more subscriptions being lost then it will bring in.  WoW is now on a decline and will never see above 10 millions subscription again, and within a year from now WoW subs will be at around 5 million.  WoW isn’t as good a game as it once was.

  • http://twitter.com/Pross182 Pross182

    I hate that the success of a game is judged by so many on the growth of the game. 9 mill subs is still pretty great and a lot of money but being publicly traded and merged with other companies the focus is on growth. Blizzard was better before it was Activision Blizzard and before they were publicly traded. WoW can only be king for so long but it really is a great game. I left because I was bored with it but I played it for 7 years I loved playing wow. 

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robbert-de-Wilde/1806039882 Robbert de Wilde

      I’m with you there man, I too loved every second of playing the lasst 6/7 years. But for people like is it’s time to move on… 

      • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

        No better time than now to come back.

        • Jay

           Why?

        • Old Ben

          > No better time than now to come back.

          So… it’s gonna keep getting worse?

    • Old Ben

      > I hate that the success of a game is judged by
      > so many on the growth of the game.

      Success is a pretty vague concept. 

      Financial success should probably be judged by how much money they make off each player.

      Success in terms of “player satisfaction” is not something you can judge from the total number of subscriptions, because you don’t know how many of those players are new and how many were replaced (ex., every player left because the game was terrible, but the company’s marketing managed to capture an identical amount of new players). Blizzard doesn’t release any data about that.

      In fact, they don’t even release detailed regional data, and, since Asian players don’t pay a monthly subscription, it’s not very clear how they count them. Do they count every player who bought a game time card during that month? Or every player who used one (even if he had already used that card in the previous month)? How do they measure people playing in WoW cafés?

      Ultimately, these numbers are kind of meaningless on their own, they’re just a measure of how things change from year to year or quarter to quarter (assuming they always measure them the same way). 

      • Karizee

        >Financial success should probably be judged by how much money they make off each player

        I spent so much money on that game.  Come back money!!

      • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

        “None so blind as those who will not see”

        Success can be very clearly defined. 

        Financial success, Blizzard sold 10m copies of D3, but lost 1.1 subs for WoW.

        Customer sanctification, seems low for both D3 and WoW.   Not sure if Blizzard can salvage D3, but clearly MoP has potential.

        MoP has the potential for growth appealing to existing players, new players and returning players.
        It has to do this by providing the gaming content and entertainment players demand. 

        For me, MoP will be successful it it can provide good steady gaming content that can be enjoyed over the next two years and brings in players who enjoy content that actually require working with others to enjoy. 

        • Old Ben

          > Success can be very clearly defined. 

          Yes, in about 257 different ways. 

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan

          With respect to customer satisfaction I wonder how broadly that applies. I think the majority of players are NOT people like us. We following gaming news. We compare game features. By ‘us’ I mean people who spend time doing game related things even when not playing.

          If the only thing you knew was WoW would any of the problems in MoP be considered problems? Is the grass greener on the other side even if you don’t bother to look over the fence?

          Are things any better if you were not aware of the alternatives?

  • http://www.facebook.com/stradus.woods Stradus Woods

    Can you show your farm to others?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robbert-de-Wilde/1806039882 Robbert de Wilde

    I would have guessed it dropped more actually. People are way to addicted to WoW… Gosh I remember those days. If they didn’t have that annual pass, it would probably be down to 8(8-5 mil right now. But all those people will probably stay after MoP. Brilliant move on Blizzrards account really. 

  • pathargan

    lol what if swtor gated content so that every lvl past 40 would take a month… that woulda solved their endgame problem =D

  • http://twitter.com/Deadalon Deadalon

    They lost zero in 1 quarter because of they offered free Cataclysm expansion just before end of March.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/lpeace.88 Leo Lamphier

    they loser 1 million for a lot of reasons 
    1) Summer time. 
    2) Way to long in Dragon Soul. 
    3) End of the expansion. 
    4) A lot of other games to try on the market. 
    5) Bad economy in most places. 
    7) WoWs getting really old.
    8) Cataclysm sucked over all for most players.
    9) People are scared that MoP is going to be a ” noob/baby game”
    I see way they lost 1 million. The question is how much will they regain after the next 2 quarterly earnings calls. 

    • JJversion1

      Yes, this is the case, I don’t think though this spells the end of WoW. If they continue losing subs after MoP releases, then it just may well be the end of WoW. We’ll have to see.

  • http://twitter.com/Nathiest Nathiest

    ptr has new content. You do not need to have a sub to play on ptr. Savy players unsub.

  • Joyces Vega

    Im surprised they haven’t lost all their subscribers the game is lame..

  • Krzysztof Kotarba

    after anoucing release date some ppl get fact that pandas are inevitable… sadly

  • http://twitter.com/Zax19taken Zax19

    Sad panda is so cute :D .

  • H S

    I wish Blizz would finally admit the real data. We all know that the total number of “accounts” includes 5-6 million Asia players who pay by the hour. Who knows, maybe they lost a million Chinese gold farmers last month. But my guess is they haven’t had more than 3 million subs in NA and EU since the release of Cata.

  • Old Ben

    > Gary dixit:
    >
    > How do you go from losing zero to [losing] 1.1 million in 3 months?

    Assuming most of those losses were in the West (which seems to be the case, looking at their revenue breakdown), I’d say you achieve a big chunk of that by letting Arena Net do three beta weekends and set its release date before you even start allowing pre-orders of MoP. And another chunk by letting Funcom actually release The Secret World (before you even start allowing pre-orders of MoP).

    The losses over the past year are due to (lack of good) content, but the losses over the past quarter are mostly due to the marketing department’s inability to react to the competition.

    If they had started selling MoP during Q2 (even without setting a release date), they would probably have held on to many of those players.

    Then again, the marketing department more than earned its pay when it came up with the annual pass. Without that, most of the players who left in the last quarter would probably have left nine months ago.

    Saying that WoW lost subscribers because of Diablo 3 is just silly; most WoW players who wanted to play D3 got the annual pass, so they’re still being counted as WoW subscribers. WoW certainly lost _players_ to D3, but not subscribers.

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      No, Activision said the majority of lost subscribers came in Asia in the second quarter.

      Saying D3 did not affect WoW number, is a really silly statement.

      • Old Ben

        > Activision said the majority of lost subscribers
        > came in Asia in the second quarter.

        If you actually read the financial statements, you’ll see they lost revenue in both the US and the EU, while their revenue in Asia increased.

        Since they don’t release the exact number of subscribers, though (and since Asia doesn’t use a monthly subscription model), you can come up with any explanation you want for that.

        > Saying D3 did not affect WoW number, is a really silly statement.

        I never said it didn’t _affect_ WoW’s numbers. It just didn’t _reduce_ them (on the contrary, it avoided a bigger loss). 

        The inclusion of Diablo 3 in the annual pass kept a lot of people as “WoW subscribers” even though they weren’t actually playing WoW.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/QBCD73QOS6W7ENXSVG3GBJ2LGA lamar

    im shocked people can sit and talk about WoW for so long. i got woozy after 10 mins.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo

    > claim D3 stole their own customers
    > most losses were in China
    > D3 is not out in china
    > D3 was a two to four week affair for half the people who bought it
    > millions subbed to WoW TO get D3

    Activision’s reason doesn’t add up.

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      Well, I think you missed quoted Activision is just about every line.

      “Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo III, released on May 15, 2012, set a new industry launch record for PC games and was the #1 best-selling PC game for the first six months of 2012. Through July, more than 10 million players have entered the world of Sanctuary.” 

      “As of June 30, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG and had approximately 9.1 million subscribers.”
       
      Activision said the majority of lost subscribers came in Asia in the second quarter.

    • Old Ben

      > Activision’s reason doesn’t add up.

      But, since they’ve stopped “showing their calculations” several years ago, they can use bistromathics.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/7S3MF725HHUW2W5LVVOSUA7JS4 Richard

    the tillers to me seems more like harvest moon to me. Not sure why everyone is calling it farmville?
     

    • MMO_Doubter

       Because more people have heard of Farmville. I agree that it is more like HM, which I like.

  • Jay

    Those 1.1 million must’ve went to SWTOR… What? SWTOR doesn’t even have 1 million?

    Nvm…

    Oh, and the answer is GW2. (The answer is always, GW2.)

  • ssjjr21

    I wonder which region these losses are coming from?   Most likely NA, since GW2 is launching here and not in Asia. (atleast not in a while.)

  • Feebsy

    There is no question where all these players from WoW, Swtor, or any other mmo reporting huge sub loses. We are tired of crap games. We are no longer choosing the lesser of evils. We are simply not playing MMOs anymore. We are done paying for shoddy quality. The MMO industry needs to step up its quality and customer relations or embrace extinction.

    • MMO_Doubter

       Amen, brother.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo

        as if. you’l be up on the next non-GW2 one.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/AJYQ4LRFQWVIX7EMUT3SWUVFGQ This Guy

    The commercials in mid-sentence are really obnoxious.

    • http://twitter.com/ItsatrapLOL itsatrapLOL

       Adblock my friend.  Adblock.

      • Shogunz

        Hopefully Adblock becomes so ubiquitous and revenue drops so sharply that everything collapses and sites start shutting down.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Joshua-Osmer/100002680014995 Joshua Osmer

    I unsubbed back in March, but my sub is still active till Aug 17th. Killing heroic Madness of Deathwing over and over and over and over…got very tedious. 7 encounters in Firelands. 8 (technically) in Dragon Soul and the ease of it was ridiculous. Rag is still the hardest fight in the game. DS was a joke. And to not provide an interim raid was a huge mistake. I wasn’t going to play MoP as it was but Cata was a huge disappointment on all fronts IMO. Put it this way, I’d rather be playing SW:ToR (which I am) then WoW. 

    As for GW2, I was not impressed. Terra…not impressed. Secret World…sucks. 

    Developers need to stop trying to copy WoW and do something original (or resurrect the SWG model pre patch 9)…the “theme park” style is tired and boring. From everyone I talk too, players are wanting a more sandbox style game again. These “theme parks” are just the same thing over and over again, just insert whatever IP as the story. 

    MoP won’t bring me back Gary. I’m done with WoW. 

    • Old Ben

      > As for GW2, I was not impressed. Terra…not impressed.
      > Secret World…sucks. Developers need to stop trying
      > to copy WoW

      You must have played some very different versions of those games; the ones in this universe are significantly different from WoW.

      TSW has a completely different setting (and the investigation missions are different from any other MMO), TERA has a completely different approach to combat, and GW2 has a completely different approach to combat _and_ a sandbox world.

  • http://www.facebook.com/doug.dougdas Doug Douglas Dougdas

    His name is Ion not Ian. Ion in greek is like Jonas. And the surname sounds like Hatz not Haz. :) have fun.

  • Kyan Vermet

    I’ll prolly play some panda mayhem for 2 months :) that’s the duration of a game card :)

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      Nothing is wrong with that, know many a player that plays two months of WoW in the fall and two months in the Summer.   Usually start up a new raid group for my casual guildies.

  • http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips

    mop looks solid but im still pissed about the horror that is diablo3. might just be time for some guild wars.

  • http://www.darkapocalypse.net Edwin Perello

    What is this song at the intro?

  • JariKiv

    I think it’s going to be very hard to bring in new casual players to WoW with MoP, when you’re looking at 120$ + 15$ a month just to get MoP running. 

    • Sharuko

      It is $60 for Vanilla through MoP when you digitally upgrade a starter account.  And it also includes 30 free days.

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      It’s getting close to the time of the year where you can pick up all the previous expansions for a total of $20.  After the fall sale, they will probably roll Cata into the Battlechest, which retails for $20 as a stand alone product, and currently includes all the expansions except Cata.

  • Sharuko

    All that negativity and MoP is still the best selling PC game on Amazon (the biggest retailer in the world) since release and will be so months after it is released.  It must really suck being Blizzard with all that crappy sales numbers.

    Oh D3 is third best selling, still.

  • http://www.facebook.com/samuel.goulet.5 Samuel Goulet

     How does Josh/Lore makes a living playing tank spot in WoW? (noob question at least I think so since I just started playing mmos like 2 yrs ago))

    • Old Ben

      TankSpot is a website. And how does anyone make money off a public website? Advertising.

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      Josh Allen is the site director for TankSpot, which is part of the ZAM Network.
      He appears on Legendary for GamebreakerTV. He has a weekly option segment on Tankspot called the Weekly Marmot and a weekly Q&A podcast as well.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001680755605 Saro Chaende

    To give an answer to the question: “How do you lose 1.1 million subscriptions?” Simple.
    1.)  You “simplify” or dumb down the content of what was a hard-core challenging game to cater to the so-called “casual gamer”. In that process, you begin to literally hand out everything to players, thus REMOVING the challenge and pretty much killing the content that initially drew gamers to it.
    2.)  You screw over your long-time, hard-core gamers by NOT listening to them when they complain about the simplified content.
    3.)  You announce in the next expansion that not only are you going back on prior statements that you will NEVER do something, to do it…and then design that expansion to be ultimately boring without any hint of a challenge and transform the various class talents into a cookie-cutter class that offers no individuality and no personalization like the old-school gamers are used to. In short, you transform the ultimate game into a crappy knock-off of a secondary, far simpler game you are just bringing out.
     
    Personally speaking, from experience and from listening to other players (both friend and stranger) after viewing the Mists of Pandaria beta…there may be plenty of purchases for the expansion, but they will NOT be sticking with WoW to play it. It is too simple, too boring, and plainly too simple to hold onto their core gamer crowd. Even the kids that have played the beta have not been able to keep any interest past perhaps one or two days, maybe an hour at that. And as a gamer that came into WoW during the Burning Crusade expansion, I could not stay interested in the pandaren starting area beyond 15 min. After 4 days playing, I stopped. Yes, the graphics are pretty but the content is ultimately boring without any challenge or need to problem-solve, no need for teamwork or communication with other players. So many of the core-group of gamers have dropped WoW that it’s…just indescribable. There are those like myself who are still addicted, but honestly, that addiction is being killed off by the game itself. Sorry Blizzard, but you really did screw the pooch on this expansion.

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      Your second point is one of the factors that lead to the 2m sub loss for Cata.   Blizzard did listen to the player base whining about how easy LK was at the end.   Initially, Cata was very difficult and caused many of the so called hardcore LK players to disband their guilds and unsub WoW.  I’m assuming some of these players were hardcore TBC players who realized their current raid groups did not have the “right stuff” to raid harder content raids. Once Blizzard nerfed Cata into the ground, any type of guild stumble resulted in more Guild disbandment’s and more losses.

      These players have already left, they no longer count.  While they continue to post to the gaming forums, they are simply irreverent, whiners from a past age.

      Will they come back to MoP, so hard to say.  I suspect many will not.  It will take slow stead growth of MoP to bring back some of the the older player base.

      • Old Ben

        No one left Cataclysm because it was “too hard”. Repeating that obvious falsehood will only ensure that the game keeps getting dumbed down. Maybe that’s what you want?

        Players left because Cataclysm was too boring and funneled everyone into doing exactly the same content (again and again and again).

        WoW reached its peak during the end of TBC, and that was as hard as it ever got. 

        • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

          Totally agree that TBC progression raiding was much harder than anything else.  So, hard that you ended with a very small percentage of players ever seeing much of the raiding content. 

          With LK, Blizzard attempt to broaden the content to a wider range of players.  That is the reason for the peak in subscriber numbers.

          With Cata, Blizzard attempt for a short time to increase the difficulty of Cata heroic and raids, but it failed.  Players and Guilds were not ready for harder content.  The hardcore progression raiders from TBC gave up because their guilds could no longer complete and they did not want to go back to LK level of difficulty in raiding.     

          • Old Ben

            > TBC progression raiding was much harder than anything else. So, hard that
            > you ended with a very small percentage of players ever seeing much of the
            > raiding content. 

            Subscriptions grew non-stop since the release of the game until the last day of TBC. 

            > With LK, Blizzard attempt to broaden the content to a wider range of
            > players. That is the reason for the peak in subscriber numbers.

            Subscriptions started falling right after the release of WotLK. They were still growing at the end of TBC. The peak was caused by people who liked TBC buying WotLK and asking their friends to join them. The decline was caused by those people being disappointed by WotLK (and only masked by the fact that China got TBC when the west got WotLK – once China got WotLK, subscriptions there started declining too). 

            It doesn’t make any sense to think that a game will be more popular is all the content is immediately accessible to everyone. It just makes people burn through it and then get bored.

    • Old Ben

      > There are those like myself who are still addicted, but
      > honestly, that addiction is being killed off by the game itself.

      Reminds me of a line from some sitcom (maybe “Mad About You”):

      “The great thing about Prozac is that it gives you the strength you need to get off it.”

      > Sorry Blizzard, but you really did screw
      > the pooch on this expansion.

      The pooch has been getting screwed at least since WotLK. The main story line was decent, but you could already see the cracks starting to appear.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jkyed Jeanette Kyed

    They will gain 2 mil subs on Pandas, me thinks :P

  • http://twitter.com/ron6405 mouse

    i left after the game after my friend quiet playing but what piss me off the most is panda for both faction. I don’t hate panda but wow made unique race for each faction. I feel like they got lazy and decided to make 1 race for both faction. I feel skeptical about the pet battle.they will put the best pet will be in cash shop. i will spend most my time playing gw2 and planet side 2 and both doesnt require sub.

    • Old Ben

      I don’t see any problem with having races that can play for both factions. Your race (or your species, to be more precise) shouldn’t determine your politics.

      Some races (ex., orcs & humans) are “naturally” separated by Warcraft’s history, but other races (like goblins) should have been able to join either faction.

      • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

        With Cata they moved from a neural status to alignment with the Horde.  From siding with Baine Bloodhoof when he liberated Thunder Bluff to rescuing Thrall from the Alliance.

        • Old Ben

          > With Cata they moved from a neural status
          > to alignment with the Horde. 

          No, they didn’t. Looks like you weren’t paying much attention to the story. Damn GW2 fanboys who think they know WoW… :-P

          There are still neutral goblins all over Azeroth. The “goblin race” that horde players can play corresponds to one specific cartel (Bilgewater), and only that cartel has chosen a faction.

          • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

            While the Steamwheedled Cartel is now a neutral organization, during the second war, they were aligned with the Horde. 

            Gazlowe, of the Steamwheedled , assisted Baine with retaking Thunder Bluff and provided him with zeppelins, explosives and other supplies.

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      The pet battle system will be no big deal for long term gameplay, but I suspect it will be more popular that Archaeology.

      Why deny one faction or the other from killing Panda players in World PVP.  I suspect they will be a favorite target for both Alliance and Horde players.

      • Old Ben

        >  I suspect it will be more popular that Archaeology.

        It’s hard to believe that anything can be more popular than WoW’s archaeology, which was the product of 4 years of intense game design.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5FFM5YOZXLHOWQ5SMDNYG64LW4 yahoo-5FFM5YOZXLHOWQ5SMDNYG64LW4

    What is Josh qualification to speak in the video? I find him to be “dumb” and say a lot of nothings. Mumbling and repeating what the other guys were already saying, saying “obvious” stuff that a truck driver or clueless layman comes up with, and most of the time had to be “lead” by the guy on top left so he doesn’t stray and keep his focus.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=657152563 facebook-657152563

       Let’s see, maybe he’s one of the main contributors of Tankspot, and helped convince the tanking community of the validity of paladins as a tanking class back in TBC (when if you were a tank, you basically only tanked as a warrior).  He also does the weekly marmot, and the weekly PST.  He as well is the GM of Months Behind on Eredar US.  Legendary is full of a lot of guessing, and tbh a LOT of Josh/Lore’s guesses have been right on the mark.  They do, do research before every show, and have notes on their screens, you can sometimes see the reflections on the screens, but even then, you still have to guess things because things are still up in the air and nothing is 100% certain.

    • Old Ben

      He’s been doing Dragon Soul for 8 months. A lesser mortal’s brain would have melted completely by now.

      • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

        He does seem to be a little fried/burned out as of late.

  • TylerDB

    last quarter we had the anual subs going out, this quarter its all ending :P

  • Josh Rosenvelt

    I am going to give GW2 a go, but I see it keeping me interested for about 3-6 months which is perfectly acceptable for a once off payment when compared to most modern games, if guild wars 2 is a failure I will be done with MMOs until Titan (yes titan might not be something we expect) What does give me hope is Titan is dev lead by Jeff Kaplan. The guy responsible for PVE endgame in BC and up until end ulduar before being moved off to Titan.

    • Old Ben

      >  titan might not be something we expect

      So far, it looks like that sentence might be two words too long.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/B45XIMRUMWI2LCSVCADOE7NDOM Arnt Ivar

    What is the noice in the background when mike b and and lore speaks? It is rather annoying. Been like this the few last shows.

    Great show tho, as always.

    Most of those lost subs are most likly goldfarmers freezing the account because theres no one needing gold at the end of an expa. Also, we will see them back in MOP, no doubt in my mind.

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      I suspect they were D3 players.

      Battlenet went from 10m accounts to 16.9m accounts.  D3 had 10m players.  

      So out of the 10m D3 players, 6.9m were new accounts, the remaining 3.1m accounts were already WoW or SC2 players.  You could assume a certain percentage of the 3.1m accounts, unsub from WoW to play D3. 

      The real question is how many of theses players will resub for MoP and how many will maintain their sub after MoP launch.

      • Old Ben

        > You could assume a certain percentage of the 3.1m
        > accounts, unsub from WoW to play D3. 

        I would assume that WoW players who wanted to play Diablo 3 simply got the annual pass (which included a free copy of D3), which means they’re still counted as subscribers, even if they’re not active players.

        • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

          For sure, I think it was 1.5m WoW subs went for the Annual Pass. 
          So, 3.1m -1.5m = 1.6m

    • Old Ben

      Surely “gold farmers” would be using the the time at the end of this expansion to stock up on gold for the launch of MoP. 

  • jessica everson

    shitty xpac is shitty

  • http://www.facebook.com/Sinja707 Sindy Nay

    Whats with the new MMO’s with no end game content.. My $60.00 and monthly cost and hours of play time should be rewarded with something to do once my character has reached top level. Step up game developers and give us something to work for instead of  disappointment!!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/Sinja707 Sindy Nay

    I love WOW..  but panda’s ? someone took a wrong turn at blizzard lol

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      Now everyone loves killing panda players.

  • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

    Woot, Best buy has the Battlechest (WoW, TBC and LK) on sale for $5 and Cata on sale for $10.

  • Kagitaar

    Thought I’m late to commenting, the issue with Brewfest was that it was going to start BEFORE MoP launched, but Coren was going to be lvl 90 the whole time, therefore taking 5 days of mount farming from everyone. Now that they’ve moved it back a week, you have a couple days to hit 89 and start running it without losing any chances at the bag.

  • http://twitter.com/Xbuster231 Justin

    yeah ill come back…6 months down the line to sub for WoW for 1 month, is that coming back? not to blizzard it isent, WoW is just to old and GW2 is shaping up to be far superior

  • Maler_1021

    i love thet game i did end i still do,but not playing any more i stopt,end i dont think im gonna play anymore cuz i see does ppl what they did to the game end blizzard how the game haz change. end they making the game evry time hard to play end gear end they give nothing to ppl for free but takes everything from you end a 5 cap level more on the next expansion end pandas omfg you mother facker.i hoppe some day someone shode make a stand end bomb you gay cuz what you ppl doing to others end to the game.wtf you ppl thinking thet vi are some kids small children to you thet vi can do staff end work harder,no one want to do thet eny more comon give us some gear easier end everything thet vi can play end end have fun,,,ther is more ppl whit 30 40 years how cant do that shit anymore end think like vi did befor wher vi waz young once.i hoope you ppl can anderstand me what i em traying to tell you how thing is working whit blizzard.I em a old player end i have some acc end i realize what they did end how hard is it end omg i cant enymore explain i em so sed right now dont be pulled in the ball sack bro.it is hopples now end they losing players everyday so much,.,,today in the newspapers WOW lost 3 milion players in the lest 2 to 3 months….it is over end such a waist

  • Maler_1021

    it is not thet dude.beckoz they did the game more harder end they dont give ppl nothing for free but takes evrythin from you they think they doing the game better but no they doing it harder end some bullshit pandas omfg,,,it is over what a shame

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