Why pay a subscription?

[Alhanelem]

40 man raids are epic and the casual players ruined it..

No, 40 man raids were not epic, they were a clusterpuff, for lack of a safe term to use on this forum. needing 40 people for several hours was overkill. You can make epic, challenging content without needing that many. It's nothing to do with being too hard, and everything to do with being simply unnecessary. Even 24 people is a lot, which is how big raids will be in this game, but it's a number I'm okay with.

Epicness does not directly correlate with number of players.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

No, 40 man raids were not epic, they were a clusterpuff, for lack of a safe term to use on this forum. needing 40 people for several hours was overkill. You can make epic, challenging content without needing that many. It's nothing to do with being too hard, and everything to do with being simply unnecessary. Even 24 people is a lot, which is how big raids will be in this game, but it's a number I'm okay with.

Epicness does not directly correlate with number of players.

Agreed, and ultimately this is why I quit WoW.

[Sidious]

No, 40 man raids were not epic

Yes they were.

Rolling in with an army of 40 people feels more epic than prancing in with 8. Period. I played completely casually in vanilla and I didn't have a problem finding a raiding guild. Even though the best guilds were doing Naxx40, we were having an absolute blast doing MC, BWL and AQ40.

Proof is not on your side. New WoW only loses subs. Why? Because Blizzard adopted an ideology similar to yours and applied it in almost all areas of the game.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

Yes they were.

Rolling in with an army of 40 people feels more epic than prancing in with 8. Period.

Apparently you're wrong... they started getting rid of them at one point. Contrary to what you hardcore players think -- most people aren't hardcore and won't spend their entire waking life trying to raid with 40 people and spending countless hours obtaining gear.

If you're a pro at wasting time there are other games out there that you can sink your life into with little to no reward. Then you can stand around the auction house in your Tier 16 gear like the game is some kind of cat-walk.

[Sidious]

Contrary to what you hardcore players think -- most people aren't hardcore and won't spend their entire waking life trying to raid with 40 people and spending countless hours obtaining gear.

Yes they will. And the proof is in the pudding: People *did* stick around. Something that can't be said for your ultra-casualized iterations of the game.

Vanilla: +5 million subs
TBC: + 6 million (11 million total)
Wotlk: +1 million (12 million total)
Cata: -3 million (9 million total)
MoP: -2 million in less than a year (~7 million total).

These are all official numbers released during Blizzard's investor conference calls. It's all in their archives, feel free to double check.

By your logic, every new casual feature that WoW introduces would send subs skyrocketing. And yet they haven't been able to post a single positive quarter in years. At one point they were even giving D3 away for free if you agreed to sub to WoW, and they STILL had a net loss in subs.

Casual players don't actually want a casual game. They just lack the foresight to know otherwise.

That said, I work a full time job and I play casually. Always have, even in WoW. But I refuse to lump myself in with them because their ideas are cancerous.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

Yes they will. And the proof is in the pudding: People *did* stick around. Something that can't be said for your ultra-casualized iterations of the game.

You're under the assumption it's the difficulty that caused WoW's subs to drop. lol....

Did you ever think maybe people got sick of playing the same game for 7-10 years?

If you were correct this game would already have 40 man raids and they would not hand out relic gear.

[Sidious]

You're under the assumption it's the difficulty that caused WoW's subs to drop. lol....

Did you ever think maybe people got sick of playing the same game for 7-10 years?

If you were correct this game would already have 40 man raids and they would not hand out relic gear.

So you think it's just sheer coincidence that as soon as they started casualizing parts of the game that didn't need to be casualized, subs began to stagnate and decline?

It's an MMO. They're dumping millions of dollars into reinventing it constantly. The game is completely different than it was before. It can hardly even be considered the same game anymore. So, no, I don't think it's because people "got tired of it". Especially because people are willing to play a game that is, for better or worse, mechanically very similar to it (ARR).

Are casuals allergic to logic or something?

FF 11 online was known for being super hard and it had a very low subscription base.

By the numbers, it's one of the most successful P2P MMO's of all time. It never had WoW's sheer numbers but it had a very dedicated, stable subscriber base that continues to this day, ~a decade later.

Why? Because XI built on its content until there was a mind-numbingly huge amount of content to participate in. Complexities and depth in the game keep people around.

Casual games are good for some short term fun, and then you burn through it and unsub. Period.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

Are casuals allergic to logic or something?

If you were right FF11 would be rocking right now.. That game was crazy hard. I had friends that played that game and told me it made vanilla WoW look like a walk in the park. They had a very low player base because of it. They know what they are doing. This game is easier for a reason. They have a hard FF MMO. Last I checked FF11 was still running if you want hard mode.

[C-croft]

No, 40 man raids were not epic, they were a clusterpuff

Yes they were.

Rolling in with an army of 40 people feels more epic than prancing in with 8. Period.

Epic clusterpuff. 40 man raiding was epic awesome. The discipline required to complete a 40 man raid was the issue. The reason few guilds could accomplish something like that is that it requires an 'elite' group of 40 willing to coordinate and cooperate. When it is 8-16, it is much easier to work with because you spend less energy on babysitting. Not only that but the raid leader has to be ready to deal with 39 other players and getting the herd together. 39 people to lead is not easy unless you are that good, and the players are willing to put it all on the line for that one person.

[The-Alchemist]

Yes they were.

Rolling in with an army of 40 people feels more epic than prancing in with 8. Period. I played completely casually in vanilla and I didn't have a problem finding a raiding guild. Even though the best guilds were doing Naxx40, we were having an absolute blast doing MC, BWL and AQ40.

Proof is not on your side. New WoW only loses subs. Why? Because Blizzard adopted an ideology similar to yours and applied it in almost all areas of the game.

The small "raid" size in this game is making a ton of these annoying little 8 man guilds that charge people for titan runs.